About the Long Branch Historical Museum Association....

The Long Branch Historical Museum Association is a nonprofit 501 (C)3 organization founded in 1953 to preserve St. James Chapel in Long Branch, New Jersey, which is also known as the Church of the Presidents because of the seven presidents who worshipped there.

Local residents Edgar and Florence Dinkelspiel, Eugene C.F. McVeigh, J.D. and Bernard Sandler, Haslam Slocum, Rev. Christopher H. Snyder, and then mayor Alex Vineburg formed the organization to operate the church as a museum after saving it from certain demolition.

The local Episcopalian Diocese had already deconsecrated the church and was planning to raze it as a result of declining attendance when Edgar Dinkelspiel and Bernard Sandler stepped in. They found a clause in the church's deed that remanded the building back to its original benefactors should it cease to be used as a house of worship.

The benefactors represented the cream of Long Branch summer society -- Pullman car inventor George Pullman, Philadelphia publisher George W. Childs, and financier Anthony Drexel. They had built the chapel in 1879 to provide a house of worship closer to their vacation homes. Dinkelspiel and Sandler tracked down their respective heirs, who signed over their interest in the property to the Long Branch Historical Museum Association.

In 1955, the Church of the Presidents was re-dedicated as the Long Branch Historical Museum. Aside from the artifacts attendant to the church, the association collected a considerable amount of artifacts associated with the early history of Long Branch, its Gilded Age, and the presidents who vacationed there.

In addition to being a historic repository, the museum has also served as an arts center by hosting fine art shows on its grounds. These events raised funding to maintain the church and highlighted the talents of local artists. A community staple for 21 years, the art shows drew as many as 1600 applications a year.

In 1976, the Church of the Presidents was named to both the State of New Jersey and National registers of Historic Places.

The Garfield Tea House

The association has also acquired another local building associated with a presidential visit. The building -- a small teahouse -- was moved to the church property after the association acquired it.

It was built from the railroad ties used to lay the emergency track* that transported a dying President Garfield from the local Elberon train station to the oceanfront cottage where he died 12 days later. Garfield, a regular visitor to Long Branch, was brought to the resort to help him recover from his ultimately fatal gunshot wound.

After Garfield died and the tracks were torn up, actor Oliver Byron built a teahouse from them that resided in the yard of his summer cottage. After several moves over the years, the teahouse came to rest on the museum grounds, where it stands today.

The Association Today

Over the last half-century, the only constant in the association has been Edgar and Florence Dinkelspiel. When ill health interfered, the museum's structural inadequacies took hold and the building had to be closed in the late 1990s until it can be stabilized.

After a long illness, Edgar Dinkelspiel has passed away. Today, Florence Dinkelspiel has assembled a new board of directors, which is working vigorously to stabilize, preserve, and restore the Church of the Presidents to its Gilded Age luster.

The following grants have been awarded:

--2004 Monmouth County Historical Commission, $4,500 to restore belfry.

--2004 New Jersey Historic Trust, $342,410 for exterior restoration.

--2004 Save America’s Treasures, $98,611 for exterior restoration.

--2005 Monmouth County Historical Commission, $5,000 for Garfield Hut.

--2006 Monmouth County Historical Commission, $4,000 for roof drainage.

The Church of the Presidents is an Official Project of Save America’s Treasures, a public-private partnership between the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the National Park Service dedicated to preserving our nation’s irreplaceable historic and cultural treasures for future generations.

*More than half a mile of tracks were laid in less than 24 hours by local residents when they learned that the ailing president was coming to Long Branch from Washington. Rather than moving the president by carriage, the tracks enabled Garfield to be brought directly to the door of railroad magnate Charles Francklyn's cottage, where he later died.