![\"Robert](\"http:\/\/www.morgan-nj.org\/blog\/contentdir\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Robert-E-Lee-PPC-Front.jpg\")
<\/a>Painting of the Robert E. Lee Inn, Credited to Snooky Wynegar, Which Used to Hang in the Robert E. Lee Inn.<\/p><\/div>\n
Those of us who grew up in post Great Depression\/World War II Morgan knew it as The Robert E. Lee Inn.\u00a0 It was located on the northwest side of the Cheesequake Creek channel where the creek emptied into RaritanBay.\u00a0 Fewer of us knew it was previously called Cady\u2019s House of Sea Food when it was built in the mid-1920\u2019s by James H. Cady \u2013 including his grandchildren. \u00a0My mother knew it however.\u00a0 I found out in an odd way which I\u2019ll cover in a bit.<\/span><\/p>\n Alfred S. Landis Picture Post Card of Cady\u2019s House of Sea Food Circa mid-1920s to mid-1930s.<\/p><\/div>\n When I first saw the Alfred S. Landis picture post card of Cady\u2019s House of Sea Food, it confused me since it looked just like the Robert E. Lee Inn and appeared to be located about where the Robert E. Lee Inn used to be located – even though the roads shown were different than the present day roads. The roads were different before World War II than they are today. The post card shows the \u201cShore Road\u201d intersecting with what later known as Old Spye Road.\u00a0 At the time it seemed to be known as either Route 4, Main Street, Keyport Road or the Amboy-Keyport Road.\u00a0 The bridge over Cheesequake Creek shown in the post card was removed after the current bridge was opened in 1943.\u00a0 You\u2019ll note that there is no sign of the Jersey Central Traction trolley line which also crossed Cheesequake Creek on this bridge.\u00a0 That line went out of business in the summer of 1923.<\/span><\/p>\n Morgan Beach in the Fall of 1938. L-R: Rita Casey, Marjorie Thalmann, and Betty Cady, Youngest Daughter of James Cady. Source: Marjorie James Collection.<\/p><\/div>\n A fact I learned only recently to the date of the original posting of this topic was that a co-worker of my mother\u2019s at Rutgers University Bookstore, the lady I knew when I went there as Betty B., was more than just a co-worker to my mother.\u00a0 Betty was and remained a life long friend to my Mom until Betty passed away on April 24, 2011.\u00a0 When my mom was a child, her parents would take my uncle and her to Morgan Beach in the summer starting sometime in the 1920\u2019s.\u00a0 They were among the hordes of people from the northern NJ cities who would flock to the JerseyShore in the summertime. Morgan Beach was essentially the first beach the Northerners would encounter while going southward and was conveniently located near a railroad station.\u00a0 The first thing my mother would do when she got to Morgan Beach was to cross over the drawbridge (shown on the postcard) and go see her friend Betty Cady.\u00a0 When I told my mom about the Cady\u2019s post card, she nonchalantly said, \u201cOh yes, it was originally called Cady\u2019s\u201d.\u00a0 That is also when she told me that her close friend Betty\u2019s maiden name was Betty Cady.\u00a0 Of course I was floored that all my life that information was known within my family yet I had no clue.<\/span><\/p>\n So the beloved Robert E. Lee Inn started out as Cady\u2019s.\u00a0 They mystery regarding when Cady\u2019s was built was demystified when I read the April 23, 1926 issue of the South Amboy Citizen newspaper.\u00a0 We now know that the restaurant was built during the winter of 1925\/26 and opened on Thursday, April 22, 1926!\u00a0 The article also confirmed something mentioned by Diane Norek Harrison, author of the \u201cRemembering the Past\u201d columns for the <\/span>Atom Tabloid & Citizen-Gazette<\/a> website.\u00a0 Diane indicated that Cady\u2019s Dining Hall was listed as a 1922 Morgan business.\u00a0 This article mentions that Mr. Cady\u2019s previous restaurant was located near <\/span>Morgan Station<\/a>, the railroad station in Morgan where what is now known as Old Spye Road crossed the New York & Long Branch Railroad, just a few hundred feet away from the site of Cady\u2019s House of Sea Food\/Robert E. Lee Inn.<\/span><\/p>\n The “House of Sea Food,” considered to be one of the most modern and best located restaurants on the Jersey Coast was opened at Morgan yesterday by Mr. J. H. Cady. Mr. Cady formerly was located at Morgan near the railroad crossing. The building is located on the Shore Road near the Morgan bridge and was built during the past winter.<\/i><\/p>\n The dining room has a capacity of seating over two hundred people and everything in the way of fixtures is entirely new. By the time the bathing season opens Mr. Cady expects to have a number of bath houses constructed and a gasoline station will be located on the property. The building is in a nice location overlooking Raritan Bay and Cheesequake Creek. Shore and fish dinners are a specialty at the new place and will, according to Mr. Cady, be as good, if not better than those which have earned for his establishment a reputation that is more than state-wide.<\/i><\/p>\n Front of Cady\u2019s House of Sea Food with Staff, Circa 1920s, Perhaps Showing Opening Day. Mr. James H. Cady is on the Left. Source: Marjorie James Collection.<\/p><\/div>\n Mr. Cady, per his grandsons Peter Bunting and David P. Weldon, later opened up a small business further north on the side of the road off of Route 35 toward Perth Amboy called Cady\u2019s Clam Bar.\u00a0 He had a smoke house out back where he smoked whiting, eels and other fish and lived in a small place near by.\u00a0 Mr. Weldon used to ride with him to and from Barnegat to obtain fresh supplies for the clam bar.\u00a0 The Clam Bar was also a hot topic on the Facebook Group \u201c<\/span>You Knew You Grew Up in Morgan if<\/a>\u201d in June of 2013. Because of this Facebook chatter, one time Morgan resident Beverly Moline identified the exact location and current Morgan resident Jim Whoski Maciejewski provided a map which helped pinpoint the location to have been on the north side of Route 35 just below the intersection with Kath Street.\u00a0 Another Morgan mystery solved!<\/span><\/p>\n Cheesequake Creek Side of Cady\u2019s House of Sea Food for Some Special Event (Possibly Opening Day), Circa 1920\u2019s. Source: Marjorie James Collection.<\/p><\/div>\n When the Cady family owned what later became the Robert E. Lee Inn, they lived on the upper floors.\u00a0 At that time, Morgan was rather remote and had very little in the way of a year round population.\u00a0 The bungalows at Morgan Beach were mostly seasonal.\u00a0 Most of the present day Morgan residential housing came later during the housing boom of post World War II but in the 1920s, near as I can tell with information I have found thus far, most residences were mainly on the streets nearest the bay or along present day South Pine Avenue.\u00a0 It is rather cool that some members of the Cady family do still have and use some of the original tables, plates, dishes and chairs from the restaurant!<\/span><\/p>\n Cheesequake Creek Side of Cady\u2019s House of Sea Food for Some Special Event (Possibly Opening Day), Circa 1920\u2019s. Source: Marjorie James Collection.<\/p><\/div>\n Thus far I don\u2019t really have any information regarding the Inn portion of the building.\u00a0 I know the building contained a restaurant and a bar.\u00a0 Debbi J. is a long time Morgan resident who used to live in one of the World War II Army surplus barracks which were acquired then placed next to the Robert E. Lee Inn (REL) by then owner Don MacRae. The barracks were originally intended for summer rentals for people from New York City per Theodore Douglas, Mr. MacRae\u2019s grandson. Later, people lived year round in them. \u00a0Debbi and her mother worked at \u201cThe Lee\u201d; Debbi eventually married one of their co-workers.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n Debbi provided us with the photo showing most of the painting of the Robert E. Lee Inn; there used to be post cards of this painting such as the one at the top of this. The painting was created by Frances Wynegar, daughter of and one of three children (Mary Lou, Frances and Richard \u201cRJ\u201d) of previous owners of the REL, Dick and Gladys Neubold.\u00a0 Frances went by the nickname \u201cSnooky\u201d \u2013 let\u2019s call her the original Snooky of the Jersey Shore!\u00a0 Thank you to Diane Wynegar Griffin for the update about her mother Snooky (especially the correct spelling), grandparents, aunts and uncles.<\/p>\n In the painting you see two levels of windows along the channel.\u00a0 Debbie wrote me that she \u201cwas told the tavern was downstairs, the second floor was a banquet hall, the third floor was where the owners lived, and there was also an apartment on the fourth floor. One day supposedly a nor’easter flooded the bar and that is when it was moved to the second floor where the bar and restaurant existed until the day it burned down.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Looking at Cady\u2019s or Robert E. Lee Inn from Morgan Beach – 1939. L-R: Marjorie Thalmann, Betty Adams, Dorothy Thalmann (Marjorie\u2019s Cousin), and Rita Casey. Source: Marjorie James Collection.<\/p><\/div>\n In my childhood time in Morgan, boaters from all over the area, including across the bay from New York, would stop at The Robert E. Lee Inn for lunch or dinner.\u00a0 Here is a Robert E. Lee Inn menu<\/a> from circa 1972! \u00a0Local kids, including my brother, Doug, would work the small docks on the channel tying up the boats for tips.\u00a0 Doug also learned the fine art of \u201cshucking\u201d clams and oysters at the Robert E. Lee Inn.\u00a0 Shucking uses a roundish blunt knife to first cut open the mollusk then to separate the muscles and soft tissue of the creature from the shell.\u00a0 This was done just before being served to the dining patrons so they could have clams or oysters on the half shell.\u00a0 Doug is a pretty amazing schucker.<\/span><\/p>\n Our school bus stopped there to pick up kids who lived either in the REL or in the bungalows (i.e., the Army surplus barracks).\u00a0 I recall one named Joe, from my Jesse Selover Elementary School days, lived in the Inn and another, named Dave from my Sayreville War Memorial High School and drum corps days, who lived in one of the bungalows.<\/p>\n Since the opening of the current draw bridge across Cheesequake Creek during World War II and the corresponding reconfiguration of the roads in support of the bridge, access to the property can only be gained via Route 35 south.<\/p>\n During the mid to latter 2000\u2019s, the Borough of Sayreville, through the Sayreville Economic Redevelopment Agency (SERA), tried to redevelop the 4-acre property along with 8 \u201criparian\u201d acres intended for a marina on the west side which boarded the western jetty.\u00a0 Per the Suburban Newspaper from November 8, 2007<\/a>, three companies submitted statements of interest to SERA.\u00a0 Hopefully this is still an active project.\u00a0 At the time, this was being lead by Mr. Raniero Renny Travisano, whom I remember from local politics and the Morgan Hose and Chemical Company (see the to-be-reposted write-up) before I moved to California.<\/p>\n How this possible redevelopment fits in with the US Environmental Protection Agency\u2019s report of contaminated areas with extremely high levels of lead around the western jetty near Cheesequake Creek and at the small beach area north of the jetty in Sayreville (i.e., the Robert E. Lee Inn site), I don\u2019t know (see the to-be-reposted write-up).\u00a0 As a minimum, it will likely delay any redevelopment plans for a number of years, if not decades.<\/p>\n From what I have found so far, here is the list of owners.\u00a0 If you have any further info on the correctness of this list, please contact me!<\/p>\n Robert E. Lee Inn from Cliff Avenue September 1978.<\/p><\/div>\n The September 23, 2003 issue of the Newark Star-Ledger indicates that \u201cThe Robert E. Lee was named for the property\u2019s original owner, Robert E. Lee Morgan, who bought it in 1904 and constructed a marina and an inn.\u201d\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if that is true.\u00a0 I do know that Robert E. Lee Morgan descended from the original Morgan family and owned property adjacent to the site so he probably also owned the property on that site.<\/span><\/p>\n There is an excellent photo of the Robert E. Lee Inn<\/a> available for purchase which would look great in a frame in your house or office.\u00a0 This photo was taken by Joe Tanski shortly before the fire.\u00a0 Joe and his wife Gail have an excellent photography studio<\/a> off South Pine Avenue in Morgan.\u00a0 Not only do they do weddings and portraits, they offer some phenomenal images of the Raritan Bay area.\u00a0 I especially like the one of the Great Beds Lighthouse<\/a>.\u00a0 When you end up buying one of the Robert E. Lee, please let them know that you read about it on this web site.<\/p>\n A full black and white image of Snooky\u2019s painting of the Robert E. Lee Inn can be seen on this Suburban Newspaper link<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n Here is an image taken shortly after the fire<\/a> which destroyed the Robert E. Lee Inn.<\/span><\/p>\n Here are some other images of the Robert E. Lee Inn<\/a> from a private individual.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a>South Amboy Citizen \u2013\u00a0April 23, 1926 \u2013 CADY OPENS NEW RESTAURANT<\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>Sadly, as had happened to some of the buildings of nearby Henry Luhrs Sea Skiff, Inc. (see the to-be-reposted write-up) and the Old Spye Inn previously located on the other side of the railroad tracks, the Robert E. Lee Inn burnt to the ground one fateful morning taking with it both Snooky\u2019s Robert E. Lee Inn painting and a giant painting of a riverboat named the Robert E. Lee. According to my records, this fire occurred in the early morning hours of April 22, 1986 (though I see another reference which indicated the fire occurred in February).\u00a0 The News Tribune reported it was a \u201c3:45 am fire\u201d and that the structure was \u201c79 years old\u201d (wrong).\u00a0 The Star-Ledger got it right when it indicated the building was a \u201c70-year-old Sayreville restaurant and bar\u201d at the time of the fire. Though Charles Ludwig, the owner at the time, hoped to rebuild the structure, fate did not concur.\u00a0 Mr. Ludwig lost the property in 1991 and died two years later.<\/p>\n\n
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