Researching the History of the Cresse-Holmes House

In the fall of 2005, the Society hired Joan Berkey, historic preservation consultant, to research and write a social and architectural history about the Society’s historic house museum, then known as the John Holmes House.

Where previous histories of the house relied primarily on data taken oral tradition and secondary sources, Berkey looked at deeds, wills, land divisions, Holmes family correspondence, and survey maps. She interviewed previous owner and Holmes descendants, and also carefully scrutinized the construction techniques used to build the oldest sections of the house, examining not only the kind of nails used, but the way the sections were put together and trimmed.

As the result of Berkey’s work, part of the house’s history has been entirely re-written. For example, it was thought that the earliest part of the house—the 2-story section in the rear with the kitchen and bedroom above—was built about 1755 by Robert Cresse who purchased the land on which it stands that year. Berkey’s research, however, proved that the land was actually purchased in 1695 by Arthur Cresse, Robert Cresse’s grandfather, and that the kitchen section of the house was probably built by Arthur Cresse’s son, John, about 1704.

Similarly, the kinds of nails used to build the impressive, 2½ story main block, were manufactured after ca. 1828, suggesting that the house could not have been built by John Holmes (who died in 1791) as previously presumed. In fact, the exterior details and interior mantels and woodwork were remarkably similar, and in some case identical, to those found in other county houses built between 1825 and 1835. Berkey then discovered a letter in the Campion files in the Society’s research library that solved the mystery: in the 1930s, the letter’s writer interviewed the last living Holmes descendant to live the house, Emma Holmes, who told the writer that her grandfather, Robert Morris Holmes, built the house and tore down the house that John Holmes had built. That information confirmed that this section of the house was probably built about 1830 and further research showed that the carpenters likely responsible for the fine craftsmanship of several mantels and the transom over the door were the Fosters (father and son) from Dias Creek.

The Museum contains extensive and varied exhibits including furnishings, costumes, tools and decorative and practical objects from the 17th to 20th centuries.

The period rooms include the 18th century kitchen and bedroom with its sampler collection, the pre- 1820 dining room and the Victorian sitting room. Visitors can tour several theme rooms such as the Doctor's Room which contains various surgical instruments and devices, and the the Military Room, which displays swords, guns, uniforms and other memorabilia from the Revolutionary through the Gulf War.

The vintage 1800's barn houses an assortment of authentic carriages... including a stage coach, a peddler's wagon and a handsomely restored doctor's sulky.

Maritime history is an important part of Cape May County. The museum is the home of the original Fresnel lens from the 1859 Cape May Point Lighthouse. And there are several other maritime and whaling exhibits.

The Native American Room contains an extensive array of arrowheads, tools and shells of the Lenni-Lenape tribe.

The historic Robert Morris Holmes House stands on land that was originally part of a 350-acre tract purchased in 1695 by Arthur Cresse (ca. 1650-1714), a carpenter who migrated from Long Island to Cape May County, New Jersey about 1692. The rear portion of the house was probably built about 1704, the year in which Cresse sold 150 acres of the 350-acre tract to his son, John (1671-1729). John, also a carpenter, probably built the rear portion and like other residents of the Jersey cape, farmed the land on which he lived, growing wheat, rye, and flax. John willed the house to his son, Robert (ca. 1690-1768) in 1729, and Robert then willed it to his son, Jonathan (ca. 1733-aft. 1795) in 1768.                                               

In 1776, Jonathan Cresse sold the house and a tract of adjoining land—a total of 192 acres—to John Holmes (1746-1791), an Irishman who had immigrated with his brothers in the 1770s. John Holmes was many things: a merchant, a slave holder (he owned 4 at the time of this death), a land holder in two states and three New Jersey counties, and a salt works owner during the Revolutionary War. In 1791, he willed the farmstead to his oldest son, Robert Morris Holmes (1782-1840). Robert Holmes was not only a farmer, but a dedicated public servant who served in the State assembly and was at various times the county tax collector, treasurer, and loan commissioner. Suffering from rheumatism, he tore down the ca. 1780 house his father built on the opposite side of the road and erected the main block of the Holmes House about 1830, claiming that his father’s house had been built too low to the ground and its dampness was affecting his health.
Robert Morris Holmes died without a will in 1840 and his “homestead plantation” was divided among his three sons with his son, Richard Collins Holmes, receiving the house and 6+ acres. Richard Holmes bought his siblings’ shares and named his holdings Strabane Farm for the town in Ireland from which his grandfather, John, had emigrated 70+ years earlier.
Richard Holmes was the most significant 19th century resident of the house; not only was he an innovative farmer who used tidal mud for fertilizer, but he was a shipping insurance agent, a lay judge, a collector of customs, and a freeholder among other things.
Beyond these accomplishments, though, it might be argued that his significance transcended county boundaries to the national level for his contributions to the saving of lives of those who were shipwrecked. In 1857, he patented a “self-righting” surfboat made of cedar and built so that no matter how it was launched into the water it would instantly right itself even when filled with men. He had long been interested in saving the lives of those on ships that foundered off the coast during bad weather and he actively took part in rescues along the Jersey shore. The National Intelligencer, a Washington, DC newspaper, believed he was responsible for saving more lives at sea than any one else in the entire country. Despite favorable response from both the press and the shipping insurance industry, Holmes’ life boat never became popular and his extraordinary role in maritime history has been largely forgotten. An invalid in his later years, he added a one-story addition to the south side of the main block and built a storage house behind the main house using a new construction material known as “gravel brick”.
After Holmes’ death in 1863, the house and its farmland were inherited jointly by his six children who never divided the land among them. Two of his children, Joseph Holmes, a farmer and Civil War veteran and his sister, Emma, both single, lived in the house their entire lives. An outhouse they used before indoor plumbing was added still stands on the property, but their chicken coops and the barn have long since vanished. After Emma Holmes’ death in 1934, the house was sold out of the family after more than 150 years of Holmes family ownership.
Judge Palmer Way (1886-1944) and his family owned the house from 1935 until 1957, using it primarily as a summer residence. Dr. Ulric Laquer, a general practice physician, and his wife, Christine, an artist, then raised their family in the house from 1957 until 1976. They moved an 18th century barn onto the property and converted it to an art studio and gallery; they also built a greenhouse next to the gravel brick storage building and added a garage at the south end of the main block. Since 1976, the house has been owned by the Cape May County Historical and Genealogical Society which uses it as a house museum, open to the public, in which many items and furnishings with ties to Cape May County are displayed. Added by the Historical Society and housed in a separate structure is the Society’s research library, gift shop, and administrative offices.