History of Lower Township

The original residents of Lower Township were the Lenape people, who had a village in the vicinity of North Cape May.  They hunted game, foraged for edible plants, fruits and berries, and grew a few crops.  In the summer, they moved to the beach where they fished and gathered oysters and clams, which they smoked to preserve them for winter.   Relations with the Lenape were peaceful, but as the colonial population grew, many moved west into what is now Cumberland County, which was less populated, or married into local white and Black families.

Earliest explorers were Henry Hudson who, in 1609, anchored briefly in the mouth of the Delaware Bay, and Cornelius Jacobsen Mey, who gave the cape its name.  In 1692, Cape May County was given a charter and in 1723 the county was divided into three precincts: Upper, Middle and Lower.  They were about the same size, with the Lower Precinct being 8 miles and about 8 miles wide.  It extended from the current border with Middle Township to the tip of the peninsula and from the bay to the ocean. 

Sometime around 1640, whalers following migrating whales established temporary whaling settlements at what is now Townbank.  These settlements were abandoned each year as they followed the whales south.  The first permanent settlement of colonists, primarily from Long Island and Cape Cod, were English and Dutch and gave the settlement the name New England Town or Portsmouth.  By 1688, there was a small settlement of 13 log houses on a bluff overlooking the Delaware Bay.  Today, this original settlement has been lost due to erosion.  

By the mid 1700’s, residents had abandoned whaling in favor of safer occupations like farming and timbering.  There were large farms throughout the township and later many dairy farms dotted the area.  Small communities such as Cold Spring and Fishing Creek had sprung up.  Life was bucolic and quiet.  By the mid 1800’s, the railroad had come to Cape May County and stations along the route gave other areas names like Bennet’s Crossing and Erma.  Other areas such as Cape May, West Cape May, Wildwood, Wildwood Crest and Cape May Point broke off from Lower Township and became communities in their own right.  Prior to the Civil War, there were also two communities of free Blacks in the township.  During WWI, Camp Wissahickon was located near Cape May and during Prohibition, rum runners landed their illegal cargo on Delaware Bay beaches.

During WWII, the Naval Air Station Wildwood was built and pilots were trained there for over water combat.  Bethlehem Steel had a munitions proving grounds along the bay. The Cape May Canal was built, dividing the township into two parts. Today, the communities of North Cape May, and the Villas as well as Fishing Creek, Erma and Cold Spring, and areas in between, are still part of Lower Township, a place to remember.