"Sandwich Island Girl" updates

There is new, additional evidence that the "Sandwich Island Girl" may have existed and surfed Asbury Park, New Jersey, in the summer of 1888. Please visit the updated chapter, especially the later section with the updates from 2017 and 2018:

https://legendary-surfers.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-sandwich-island-girl-1888.html

USA East Coast Begins

USA East Coast Surfing Begins

When did riding wooden surfboards first begin on the East Coast of the United States? When did the first images of surfing appear and who were the first East Coast surfers?

The first printed image of a surfer on the East Coast is “The Sandwich Island Girl,” on the cover of the cover of the National Police Gazette of August 18, 1888.¹ The second is a picture postcard from Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, hand dated 1907. The first known surfers were Burke Haywood Bridgers at Wrightsville in the late summer of 1909 and Eugene Johnson in Daytona Beach, Florida, at the same time.

All four of these significant historical finds have been discovered in recent years by the same surfer and East Coast research/historian: Joseph “Skipper” Funderburg.²

Wrightsville Beach Postcards, 1907-1922

With the exception of “The Sandwich Island Girl” etching in 1888, the earliest known image of a surfboard and surfer on the East Coast of the United States is the picture postcard of Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, hand dated 1907.³

The postcard is a photographic view of a large crowd of people surf bathing on the ocean side of Wrightsville’s Sea Shore Hotel. The 1907 postcard clearly shows a surfer boy on a Hawaiian styled body board (keoe) or possibly short alaia.⁴

The postcard is entitled “The Sea Shore Hotel, Wrightsville Beach, NC.” In handwriting, the postcard sender wrote: “How about a swimming lesson?” and hand dated it March 24, 1907. “Based on the date, it’s pretty obvious the photo was taken during the summer of 1906 or before,” wrote East Coast surf historian J. Skipper Funderburg.⁵

Steve Massengill, author of A North Carolina Postcard Album, agreed: “the photograph could date a year or more earlier.”⁶

Massengill is considered an expert on the history of picture postcards, having worked in the field of non-textual materials as a public historian and having published several works in the field.⁷

“Prior to the days of automobile access,” detailed Skipper Funderburg, “the location is on the old railroad line at Station Three. The Sea Shore Hotel had a magnificent view out to sea and a gently sloping beach leading to the” Atlantic Ocean. “The hard packed sandy beach between the island and the sea provided the opportunity for guests to bath in the surf. Without question, the hoopla in the surf invariably crystallized around the nucleus of the oceanfront of the grand hotels, clubs and bathing establishments. We do not know exactly when surf bathers began to clutch wooden planks to their bodies and hold them before a breaking wave to hitch a ride to shore. We do know surfing in its earliest form was obviously occurring at this location. The wooden planks in the image confirm surfing was occurring on Wrightsville Beach in 1907, but more likely 1906 or before.”⁸

Three additional Wrightsville Beach postcards have been found; two hand dated and U.S. Postal Service stamped 1909 and 1912, and a third hand dated July 19, 1922 and postmarked the next day, showing body boarders surfing prone on body boards and what appears to be an alaia sized board.

Wrote Steve Massengill: “it was not uncommon for postcard manufacturers to use the same negative when printing new postcards.” “One will see the same scene on various postcards with different dates and used on different style cards – undivided back and divided back, etc.” “The companies would use different coloring and sometimes add small details and crop out others.”⁹

“Postcard companies would hire photographers, either local or itinerant, to take pictures of tourist spots,” explained Funderburg. “Then the companies would produce multiple printed cards of photos in hopes of cashing in on tourists and vacationers mailing cards back to loved ones. North Carolina postcards were not prevalent until after 1906, and postcards prior to 1912 were printed in Germany. After 1912, postcards were printed in England and the USA, because of broken ties with Germany.”¹⁰

Wrightsville postcard hand-dated 1907:

Wrightsville beach postcard, 1922:

In the book Land of the Golden River, Vol. 1, published in 1975, local author Lewis Phillip Hall (1907-1980), wrote of his personal experiences surfing Wrightsville Beach. “In the early twenties (1920’s), before the jetties were constructed, a sand bar ran the entire length of the beach. We swam out to the combers where (it was) making up. At times there would be ten or fifteen youths in a crowd. It was a beautiful sight, ten surfers riding the cresting wave a long time... I'll have to admit, however, that we did not ride our boards standing erect, but lying halfway the board.”¹¹

“Riding the Surfboard”

Back in the Hawaiian Islands, South Carolinian Alexander Hume Ford created and established the Outrigger Canoe and Surfboard Club at Waikiki, Hawaii, in 1908, to develop the “great sport of surfing in Hawaii.”¹² 

He also wrote about surfing itself. “Riding the Surfboard” was published in the August 14, 1909 edition of Colliers National Weekly, New York City, and read widely throughout the United States. In it, Ford encouraged readers to try the sport.¹³

Two particular people on USA’s East Coast immediately did so: Burke Haywood Bridgers, Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, and Eugene Johnson at Daytona Beach, Florida. Likely, there were others, but these are the two we know a little bit about.

Burke Bridgers, Wrightsville, late August 1909

We know about Burke Haywood Bridgers because of a letter he wrote to Alexander Hume Ford. Not knowing Ford’s address, Bridgers wrote to him in care of Colliers. The letter was then “forwarded to the press -- Pacific Commercial Advertiser in Honolulu.”¹⁴

Bridgers’ letter was subsequently published in the Pacific Commercial Advertiser on April 2, 1910.¹⁵

“The illustrated articles on surfboard riding published in St. Nicholas and in Collier’s by Alexander Hume Ford,” a writer at the newspaper prefaced, “are still attracting attention in the east. Last summer a number of youngsters along the Atlantic Coast attempted to build surfboards, using the pictures in the St. Nicholas article as models.”¹⁶

In his letter, Bridgers asked Ford questions about surf boards and wrote about some experiences he and his friends had had at the end of the previous summer:

“I was very much interested in your article entitled Riding the Surfboard, which came out in Colliers Weekly for August 14, 1909. During the past summer, we tried this sport to a very considerable extent, but did not meet with any great success, due to the fact the boards did not have sufficient supporting ability to carry the weight of a man, except when reclining at full length on the board.”¹⁷

“Of course,” Bridgers letter continued, “in this case, the body was more or less submerged and therefore buoyed up by the water. I do not know whether this lack of success was due to the type of board used or the character of the surf on the coast.”¹⁸

Bridgers continued: “Most of the surfboards used here were made out of juniper – a very light wood-an inch and a half thick, eighteen to twenty inches wide and from six to seven feet long.”¹⁹

“The Bridgers Family owned large, long established and well financed timber yards,” notes Funderburg, “so the timbers were probably harvested on their own land, and probably planed there.”²⁰

“Junipers are Atlantic White Cedar (Eastern White Cedar),” Skipper also noted, “and their wood is a traditional favorite of boat and ship builders, as it is resistant to wood-boring worms. Carolina bays and swamps support vast quantities of Juniper trees.”²¹

Bridgers wrote to Ford: “These boards would invariably stop and sink in every case where the passenger attempted to stand upright, although the balance was frequently maintained. The most successful effort toward coming in erect, were by small boys under 100 pounds in weight.”²²

Continuing: “The surf on this coast usually breaks within a hundred to a hundred and fifty yards of the shore, except in storms. So far no one has been able to force a board out beyond the breakers in stormy weather. A pier is now being erected, which during the coming summer will enable us to obviate this difficulty; and if the waves here are sufficiently large, or the wave speed sufficiently fast we should be able to do all that can be done in other places. If you can give me information on the following points, I will thank you very much.”²³

Bridgers ended his letter with some specific questions:

“What is the thickness and weight of the usual Hawaiian surf board?

“Are these boards made perfectly straight on the bottom, or do they curve up at the bow and sides?

“Has anyone ever come in standing up in this country? What is the average height and wave speed in the Hawaiian Islands?

“Are the waves there ridden at all before they break, if so, generally how far?

“Has the experiment of launching these boards from a chute ever been tried?”

“Yours very truly, Burke H. Bridgers.”²⁴

A Pacific Commercial Advertiser writer responded to Bridgers letter, that “Alexander Hume Ford is sending for a juniper board, and is informing the Wilmington, North Carolina correspondent that the board is just right, although the Waikiki boys now go for boards two inches thick and eight feet long, pointed at the bow and tapering slightly at the stern.”²⁵

“Anyone who has learned to ride and stand on a board at Waikiki can perform the same feat elsewhere, but Hawaii is the only place where rollers form and roll for a quarter of a mile without breaking.”²⁶

It is not known whether or not Ford wrote or contacted Bridgers subsequently.

In addition to the Bridgers letter to Alexander Hume Ford, there are area newspaper articles mentioning a surfing contest on Wrightsville Beach, at the end of the summer of 1909 and a Lumina Pavilion program guide for a surfing contest on July 4, 1910:

The Wilmington Evening Dispatch, on August 29, 1909, touted a surf board riding contest to be held at the Lumina Pavilion on Labor Day. Similarly, an article in the Wilmington Morning Star of September 1, 1909 described planned Labor Day activities that included “surf board sports, always interesting and entertaining for spectators.”²⁷

In a 2014 interview “Laurence Gray Sprunt, former owner of Orton Plantation, recalled growing up next door to Burke Bridgers at Wrightsville Beach in the late 1930s and 1940s. Sprunt stated that Bridgers taught local boys how to surf and was the ‘original surfing leader.’”²⁸ 

From this, we can see that surfing -- at least seasonally -- became on-going activity at Wrightsville.

Burke Haywood Bridgers, 1903

Eugene Johnson and Wife, Daytona, 1909

At about the same time Burke Haywood Bridgers was making his surfboard in late August, 1909, Eugene Johnson was making his own at Daytona Beach, Florida.

Published on the social page of the Daytona Gazette-News, Florida, “Seabreeze and Daytona Beach” by Mrs. H. A. Bernard, August 28, 1909 documents that Eugene Johnson at Daytona was also inspired by Alexander Hume Ford’s “Riding the Surfboard” and built his own surfboard and rode it, along with his wife.²⁹

“Eugene Johnson has recently constructed what is called a surfboard, and he and his wife had fine sport at the beach last Thursday afternoon riding the waves. It is a new wrinkle that is taking well with surf bathers. Eugene got the idea from Colliers Magazine.”³⁰

Since the Daytona article was published Saturday, August 28 and the Collier's article was published on August 14, that means Bridgers and Johnson were surfing roughly about the same time on Alexander Hume Ford inspired surfboards.

So, in terms of knowing the names of people first surfing the East Coast, credit goes to both Burke Haywood Bridgers and Eugene Johnson and wife, in late August 1909. The earliest record of surfing in an area -- even if it might just be on a rental board from a bath house -- goes to Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. Postcard evidence documents surfing activity there before and after Bridgers made his first board.

Significantly, we also have record of sustained surfing activity at Wrightsville from about 1906 onwards, which we don’t have for Daytona Beach or any other location on the East Coast. The personal recollections that Burke H. Bridgers continued to surf and helped others surf in the decades following separates it distinctly from Daytona or Virginia Beaches where surfing as an on-going activity did not begin until the early 1930s, with the arrival of the Tom Blake hollow board.³²

Duke Kahanamoku, 1912-1919

Surfing remained virtually unknown on USA’s East Coast until “The Father of Modern Surfing,” Duke Paoa Kahanamoku gave his famous surfing and bodysurfing demonstrations on the Jersey Shore and Long Island, 1912-1919.

On his way back from Stockholm’s Summer Olympics in 1912, Duke stopped at the University of Pennsylvania, where he had first trained prior to going to Europe for the Olympics. While at Penn, he went down with some others to the Jersey Shore and put on demonstrations of swimming and surfing at Atlantic City and bodysurfing on Long Island, New York.³³

Duke recalled that he did not board surf on Long Island in 1912. “I did bodysurf there [in New York, on Long Island] – Far Rockaway and Sea Gate and places like that. But the boards – I never had a chance to carry a board or anything like that… in 1912, after I came back from the Olympics... I came back to Philadelphia… I was training there with George Kistler of the University of Pennsylvania… I came back and then I went over to Atlantic City and rode the board there (laughs) and the water was, well – water was all right [it was probably much colder than he was used to]. And then I… [took] that doggone board. I’d carry it on the pier and then throw it off the pier. And, you know, those piers down at Atlantic City there [are] very high. I used to chuck this doggone surfboard off the pier and into the water and then jump or dive and picked up the board and then ride them by the side of the pier.”³⁴

After 1912, Duke Kahanamoku continued his surfing ambassadorship along the Atlantic East Coast, during his time with the Red Cross, as part of the war effort.³⁵

“I was part of a group of aquatic stars organized into a unit with the Red Cross for the purpose of touring the Continent and Canada,” explained Duke. “We put on water sports exhibitions before vast crowds to collect revenue for relief for the war wounded... I demonstrated surfboard riding at Castles-by-the-Sea, the Long Island resort started by Vernon Castle, the great dancer of that era. A big storm was blowing, but we were on limited time and we wouldn’t be back; so it was then or not at all. Cold was the word! But the gods smiled down upon me, for I didn’t have to sit my board for long. I caught a giant swell and roared in all the way to shore at express train speed. The throng on shore loved it.”³⁶

“Some instruction followed, then a lot of advice on how to build boards – and the seed was planted there. Surfing took hold...”³⁷

---

¹  LEGENDARY SURFERS: “Sandwich Island Girl, 1888” at http://www.legendarysurfers.com/2017/01/sandwich-island-girl-1888.html

²  See http://www.carolinabeach.net/surfing_history_changed.html

³  J. Skipper Funderburg email to Malcolm, 28 March 2017. See also discovery information from 25 December 2009 at http://www.carolinabeach.net/surfing_history_changed.html

⁴  J. Skipper Funderburg email to Malcolm, 28 March 2017. Image courtesy of New Hanover Public Library, Robert M. Fales Collection. See http://www.carolinabeach.net/surfing_history_changed.html. Image also online at: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaUOm0C-DfhDyzJKf53Sfcc6ZaZ0UOlykgit3bB-WC6JHWYLhTpbdCxZVljSmz1l2r0GqoI37RXDhpiWc7xJD7Y7tqKKV2mTItmIBri3u7myVFCUdya6k9M6AhyAs7toxhKzoM0vOlJqMz/s1600-h/1907%20WB%20Surfing%20Postcard.jpg

⁵  J. Skipper Funderburg email to Malcolm, 28 March 2017. Image courtesy of New Hanover Public Library, Robert M. Fales Collection. See http://www.carolinabeach.net/surfing_history_changed.html

⁶  J. Skipper Funderburg email to Malcolm, 28 March 2017. Steve Massengill quoted. See http://www.carolinabeach.net/surfing_history_changed.html

⁷  J. Skipper Funderburg email to Malcolm, 28 March 2017. See http://www.carolinabeach.net/surfing_history_changed.html

⁸  J. Skipper Funderburg email to Malcolm, 28 March 2017Blockade Runner. The hotel was built in 1892 with a steel pier added in 1910. The site presently is the location of The  Resort. See http://www.carolinabeach.net/surfing_history_changed.html

⁹  J. Skipper Funderburg email to Malcolm, 28 March 2017. Steve Massengill quoted. See http://www.carolinabeach.net/surfing_history_changed.html

¹⁰  J. Skipper Funderburg email to Malcolm, 28 March 2017. Postcard validated and authenticated by the North Carolina Division of History and Archives, Raleigh, North Carolina. See http://www.carolinabeach.net/surfing_history_changed.html. Image also online at: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaUOm0C-DfhDyzJKf53Sfcc6ZaZ0UOlykgit3bB-WC6JHWYLhTpbdCxZVljSmz1l2r0GqoI37RXDhpiWc7xJD7Y7tqKKV2mTItmIBri3u7myVFCUdya6k9M6AhyAs7toxhKzoM0vOlJqMz/s1600-h/1907%20WB%20Surfing%20Postcard.jpg

¹¹  LEGENDARY SURFERS, 15 February 2009. Lewis Phillip Hall quoted; “combers” meant “breakers” and “making up” probably meant “macking up.” Source: http://www.carolinabeach.net/surfing_history_changed.html

¹²  LEGENDARY SURFERS, 8 May 2009: “Alexander Hume Ford” at http://files.legendarysurfers.com/blog/2009/05/alexander-hume-ford.html

¹³  Ford, Alexander Hume. “Riding the Surfboard,” Collier’s National Weekly, Volume 43, Number 21, 14 August 1909, with photographs from the author. Ford also had another surfing article with pictures published in August 1909, in St. Nicholas Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls, article entitled “A Boy’s Life in The Pacific.”

¹⁴  Funderburg, J. Skipper. “Critical Textual Analysis of the Burke Haywood Bridgers Letter & Comments,” 31 March 2015.

¹⁵  Pacific Commercial Advertiser, Honolulu, Hawaii, 2 April 1910.

¹⁶  Pacific Commercial Advertiser, Honolulu, Hawaii, 2 April 1910.

¹⁷  Pacific Commercial Advertiser, Honolulu, Hawaii, 2 April 1910. Burke Haywood Bridgers.

¹⁸  Pacific Commercial Advertiser, Honolulu, Hawaii, 2 April 1910. Burke Haywood Bridgers.

¹⁹  Pacific Commercial Advertiser, Honolulu, Hawaii, 2 April 1910. Burke Haywood Bridgers.

²⁰  Funderburg, J. Skipper. “Critical Textual Analysis of the Burke Haywood Bridgers Letter & Comments,” 31 March 2015.

²¹  North Carolina Highway Marker Program, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, Marker ID D-116, “Pioneer East Coast Surfing,” updated 28 March 2017: http://www.ncmarkers.com/Markers.aspx?MarkerId=D-116. See also Funderberg, 31 March 2015.

²²  Pacific Commercial Advertiser, Honolulu, Hawaii, 2 April 1910. Burke Haywood Bridgers.

²³  Pacific Commercial Advertiser, Honolulu, Hawaii, 2 April 1910. Burke Haywood Bridgers.

²⁴  Pacific Commercial Advertiser, Honolulu, Hawaii, 2 April 1910. Burke Haywood Bridgers. Image of a chute in “source file 33,” Funderburg.

²⁵  Pacific Commercial Advertiser, Honolulu, Hawaii, 2 April 1910.

²⁶  Pacific Commercial Advertiser, Honolulu, Hawaii, 2 April 1910.

²⁷  Wilmington Evening Dispatch, August 29, 1909 and Wilmington Morning Star, September 1, 1909 cited in description of Marker D-116, “Pioneer East Coast Surfing,” updated 28 March 2017: http://www.ncmarkers.com/Markers.aspx?MarkerId=D-116. See also: Lumina Program for July 4, 1910 Athletic's Event.

²⁸  North Carolina Highway Marker Program, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, Marker ID D-116, “Pioneer East Coast Surfing,” updated 28 March 2017: http://www.ncmarkers.com/Markers.aspx?MarkerId=D-116. See also Funderburg, 31 March 2015.

²⁹  J. Skipper Funderburg email to Malcolm, 27 March 2017.

³⁰  Bernard, H.A. Column published in the Daytona Gazette, 28 August 1909.

³²  Ferebee, Stewart. “The Surfing Life, Virginia Living Magazine, August 4, 2011 at: http://www.legendarysurfers.com/2011/08/virginia-beach.html and Kahn, Jordan. “Surfing’s Lost Chapter,” Daytona Beach News-Journal, 28 July 2008 at http://files.legendarysurfers.com/blog/2008/08/early-daytona-beach.html.

³³  Lueras, Leonard, 1984, p. 96.

³⁴  Kahanamoku, 1968, pp. 36-37.

³⁵  Gault-Williams, LEGENDARY SURFERS Volume 1, 2005. Chapter on Duke.

³⁶  Kahanamoku, 1968, pp. 36-37.

³⁷  Kahanamoku, 1968, pp. 36-37.

The Sandwich Island Girl, 1888

Updated: August 2018

In 2006, East Coast surf historian Skipper J. Funderberg discovered an illustration of a young woman surfing in New Jersey, dated 1888. It was a woodcut engraving that appeared on the cover of the National Police Gazette of 18 August 1888, with a description on page 14. The covers caption read: “A Gay Queen Of The Waves: Asbury Park, New Jersey, Surprised By The Daring Of A Sandwich Island Girl.” The image depicts a girl surfing Asbury Park shore break.¹

The print caused much discussion among us writers of surfing’s history.² The big question the image raised: was there really a brief instance of someone -- female or not -- surfing Asbury Park, New Jersey, in the summer of 1888? If so, that would put Asbury Park as the first spot known to have been board surfed on the East Coast.

The description that goes with the engraving reads:

“A group of summer loungers on the beach at Asbury Park, N.J., were watching the extraordinary antics of a dark eyed, bronze-faced girl in the sea a few mornings ago. The object of all this interest and solicitude was beyond the line of breakers and standing on a plank that rose and fell with the swelling waves. Her bathing dress was of some dark material, fitting close to the figure, the skirts reaching scarce to her knee. Her stockings were of amber hue, adorned with what from the shore seemed to be vines and roses in colored embroidery. She wore no hat or cap. Her hair, bound across the forehead and above the ears by a silver fillet, tumbled down upon her shoulders or streamed out upon the wind in black and shining profusion. Her tunic was quite sleeveless, and one could scarcely fail to observe the perfect development and grace of her arms. As a wave larger than those which had gone before slowly lifted the plank upon its swelling surface, she poised herself daintily upon the support, her round arms stretched out and her body swaying to and fro in harmony with the motion of the waters. As the wave reached its fullest volume she suddenly, quick as thought, and with a laugh that rang full into shore, drew herself together, sprang into the air, and, her hands clasped together and clearing her a way, plunged into the rolling sea. There was a little cry from timid feminine watchers on the sand, but the smiling face was above water again while they cried, and the daring Triton was up on the plank again in another moment and waiting for a second high roller. So she has been amusing herself and interesting the mob for three mornings. She is as completely at ease in the sea as you or I on land, and the broad plank obeys her slightest touch.”³

Skepticism was the order of the day for all of us taking a critical eye to the print, caption and accompanying text. Questions centered around: Who could this be? What does the image and text really tell us? Can the source be trusted? Are there any other references to this event?

Who Could This Be?

Because it was a purportedly brief period of three days, one critic brought up the idea that it might be part of a larger event taking place at that time. Perhaps she was a performer promoting the circus that was in town on Aug. 15: “Frank A. Robbins' Gigantic and Sensationally realistic wild west hippodrome, caravan, circus, menagerie, museum, aviary and aquarium.” Or maybe she was a circus performer just out for a morning swim?⁴

DeSoto Brown of Hawaii’s Bishop Museum pointed out that “if she’d been a performer, there would have been some sort of plug in the text for where she was currently appearing. And if she had been performing – and she really was from Hawaii – I think we would know about her already. The hula was still too immodest to perform on stage then, I would say, so I don’t know what such a person would have been doing had she been an entertainer.”⁵

Another thought that this might be Hawaiian princess Ka’iulani, traveling on her way to England. However, this was discounted as Ka’iulani did not leave Hawaii until the following year, on May 10, 1889.⁶

What does the image and text really tell us?

“Illustrations of surfers had already appeared in a number of publications by this time,” continued DeSoto Brown, “although the image was certainly not yet very well known. These would have been descriptive books about other lands, or would have been personal accounts of travel to Hawaii. Tourism [in the Hawaiian Islands] at this point was practically nonexistent. The earliest publication which is purely commercial, specifically printed to promote travel to Hawaii, probably appeared in this same year. (There are at least 3 different editions of it, with different copyright dates). This is a foldout brochure from the Oceanic Steamship Co, which has a number of illustrations, including a surfing scene. I doubt many people on the east coast would have seen it, however, since the Oceanic ships traveled only in the Pacific. My point is, even though surfing was not yet widely known in the late 1880s, pictures of it had been published and there was at least some awareness in the American public. Certainly this picture and accompanying article show this is true, since there is no detailed explanation of what surfing was, or how it was done. Thus the readers of the Police Gazette can be assumed to have already had some familiarity with the concept.”⁷

Australian Geoff Cater questioned both the text and the image, summarizing that “the text and the image do not clearly indicate wave riding; the text does not resemble any of the many other accounts of surfriding published in the 19th century; the image is likely to be constructed from previously published images” -- specifically, “the board is almost a direct copy of the one in Jacques Arago’s ‘Wahine, Hawaii, circa 1819...’ the stance and the hand positions are possibly analgam from the riders in Wallis McKay ‘Surf-swimmers, circa 1874.’”⁸

Elaborating further, Geoff wrote: “A close reading [of numerous descriptions of surf riding in the 1800s] indicates that the writers go to considerable effort to convey to the reader the elementary characteristics of surf-riding. They invariably include details that include the board, paddling-out, wave selection, take-off, riding in various positions, wave sliding angle and wipe-outs. Detailed descriptions of the rider's attire are scarce (both the number of descriptions and the attire).”⁹

If the rider existed and the event took place as described, how did she surf with a dress, stockings and head band? And where did she get the board from?

Can the source be trusted?

Surfing biographer Craig Lockwood addressed the subject matter of the National Police Gazette, itself:

”... the Police Gazette, (there were several and were euphemistically referred to as "Gentleman's Periodicals")... Socially and culturally, the Police Gazette and its subsequent imitators were roughly the equivalent of a combined Ring Magazine-National Inquirer-Playboy-True Detective, typically in a tabloid or digest format. The subjects were those aimed at titillating a very sexually inhibited and repressed Victorian male audience, and it was a table-top staple of the neighborhood saloon, barbershop, and athletic club -- all bastions of the younger male middle-class and skilled tradesmen.”¹⁰

“Scantily clad -- well, by the mores of the times, scantily clad -- women were featured at every possible opportunity... As can be imagined by reading the pages of the Star or Inquirer today, the level of journalism found in these periodicals was inspired by a combination of rumor, innuendo, and extrapolative falsification, with as much emphasis on females in ‘unusual’ situations as possible.”¹¹

Craig’s opinion was that to ascribe much validity to a magazine like the Police Gazette was giving it more credit than it deserved.¹² He added, however: “If memory serves me right, Robert Louis Stevenson visited and wrote about Hawaii and seeing surfing about this time. His adventures in the South Seas were widely published and commented upon during the late 1880s. I seem to recall that something about his travels -- letters or other correspondence -- were published in Harper's during the same period. It might prove interesting to do a little literary detective work, i.e., an analytic comparison between the Police Gazette’s piece’s details and those of R.L. Stevenson’s.”¹³

In “Sandwich Island Girl Hangs Five,” Skipper Funderberg went into greater detail about the National Police Gazette [NPG]:

“Richard Kyle Fox was the Editor and Proprietor of the NPG from 1877 until his death in 1922. Fox perfected the sports page and the gossip column, as well as the use of large illustrations to dramatize the stories in his paper. Before Fox, these things did not exist as we know them today. Fox turned a text heavy medium into something visually exciting. Even Thomas Edison was a regular reader. Irving Berlin wrote a song about it: ‘The Girl on The Police Gazette.’ Hugely popular, even across the ocean, the publication made an appearance in James Joyce’s masterpiece ‘Ulysses.’”¹⁴

“... news reporting in the 19th century was not like today. There was no television, no movies, and no radio. We take many details for granted in a typical news story that were not considered important back then. Getting the names of participants, attributing quotes, and other factual details were often not priorities. The NPG decided what its focus was and stuck to it. One focus was on women’s appearance and movements – anything that was sexually titillating for the time. Who she was and where she came from was of less importance. The NPG certainly was a publication that mixed fact with fiction.”¹⁵

“I have to continue to believe the NPG is describing a real event.”¹⁶

Writing about Asbury Park, itself, Skipper continued:

“Asbury Park, NJ, is located 55 miles south of New York City and 60 miles away from Philadelphia, PA. Founded in 1871, Asbury Park was considered a country by the sea destination; boasted a mile and a quarter beach; is one of about fifty-four seaside cities on the Jersey Shore; and nestled about halfway along the hundred mile stretch of coastline between Cape May, NJ, and Sandy Hook, NJ. More than a half million people a year vacationed in Asbury Park during the summer season, riding the railways from the New York City Metropolitan Area.”¹⁷

“At that time on the Jersey Shore, Asbury Park would have been a more religious and teetotaling clientèle than Cape May or Atlantic City. Founded in 1869, Ocean Grove, NJ, the seat of the Temperance Movement on the Jersey Shore, is the southern border of Asbury Park. A visionary Methodist clergyman, Reverend Ellwood H. Stokes, convinced his congregation to invest in three hundred acres and one mile of beach front. The community was known as the Queen of Religious Resorts, and enforced a multitude of strict rules, including no beach bathing on Sundays. This would have played into the hands of the NPG editors, who delighted in exposing hypocritical clergy and tended to scoff at religion and temperance in general. The NPG editors had great fun at the institution’s expense. In short, the NPG would have jumped at the chance to portray something extravagant or un-ladylike among the straight laced beach goers.”¹⁸

Discovery of 2017

Skipper J. Funderberg continued his search for whether this event did happen or not and who “The Sandwich Island Girl” could have been. In 2017, he wrote me with some exciting news:

“I have recovered a Philadelphia Press Letter release published in three United States newspapers [Chicago Tribune, Chicago, Illinois, 2 August 1888, page 9; St. Louis Post Dispatch, main edition, St. Louis, Illinois, 4 August 1888, page 7; The Tennessean, Nashville, Tennessee, 5 August 1888, page 8]. They provide important additional information, not published in the National Police Gazette, August 18, 1888 article.”¹⁹

The new information is as follows:

"When she has had enough of it she will bring the plank into shore, she riding upon the further and gliding it like a goddess over the crests and through the foam of the biggest breakers. She comes from the Sandwich Islands and is making a tour of the country. Her father is an enormously rich planter. She arrived in the Park a week ago with the family of a wealthy New York importer. She is at a fashionable hotel and is one of the most charming dancers at the hotel hops, as well as the most daring swimmer on the Jersey coast. She is well educated and accomplished, and, of course, speaks English perfectly and with a swell British accent that is the despair of the dudes. She learned to be the mistress of the waves in her childhood at her native home by the sea, where she modestly says, all girls learn swimming as a matter of course, quite as much as girls in this country learn tennis or croquet.”²⁰

So, the event and the girl or young woman are not fabrications of the National Police Gazette, but part of a released story from the Philadelphia Press Letter that was picked-up by three other newspapers in addition to the NPG.

Discovery of 2018

So, in summary, the mystery of the Sandwich Island Girl began in 2006, when Skipper Funderberg discovered a wood-cut illustration of her in the August 18, 1888 edition of the National Police Gazette. This was followed up later in 2017 by his finding a syndicated Philadelphia Press Letter article dated July 29, 1888, pre-dating the Gazette article and which was also published in several other newspapers.

Yet another find was made in 2018, when an Asbury Park Press reporter doing archival research discovered a personal ad in The Daily Press -- predecessor of the Asbury Park Press. Placed by J.L. Graham of Sea Bright on August 6, 1888, it read:

"The undersigned desires to know the whereabouts of a young lady from the Sandwich Islands who is stopping in the park."²¹

The ad appeared three days after The Daily Press ran a short blurb about Graham’s search, titled: "Will the search be successful?" Graham had told The Daily Press that he had a home in the Sandwich Islands and knew the lady.

"If someone went through that much effort to find her, it certainly offers more proof she was real," Skipper pointed out.

It is not known if Graham ever located her.²²

The Search Continues

There is still hope that the identity of “The Sandwich Island Girl” will be discovered and whether or not it was true she surfed a couple of days off the beach at Asbury Park, New Jersey, in the summer of 1888. This is because there are more people researching the subject and discovering sources of information not previously considered.

Not long after the unearthing of the Griffith ad, I received a copy of a letter sent to Desoto Brown of the Bishop Museum in Honolulu. It is reproduced in near-entirety below, courtesy of Vinnie Dicks, its author:

“Aloha, I live at the Jersey Shore and saw the recent article in the Asbury Park Press regarding the Police Gazette Sandwich Island girl of 1888, which added new information to the story. It describes a contemporaneous ad taken out looking for the girl by a J. L. Graham. My book on Jersey Shore history was focused on this era... I can shed some light on J. L. Graham who is mentioned as the source of the 1888 ad... I can prove John Lorimer Graham had the means, the recognition and the reason for attempting to contact a Hawaiian girl who may have been at the Jersey Shore in the late 1880s.²³

1) John L. Graham was married to a Hawaiian Alii Princess in 1885.

2) Graham's father was among the richest men in NY at the time.

3) His father owned a seaside estate in Rumson Neck on the Shrewsbury River, across from Sea Bright.

4) His wife was missing home and unhappy

“J.L. Graham's wife was Eleanor Kaikilani Coney a descendant of Kamehameha, born in 1867 to John Harvey Coney and Laura Amoy Kekuakapuokalani Ena. Coney was from Litchfield NY, but settled in Hawaii where he was named Sherrif of Hilo due to his wife's royal land holdings there. He entertained Mark Twain during his visits to Hawaii. Eleanor was his 5th child.

“’I stopped 3 days with Hon. Mr. (Coney), Deputy Marshal of the Kingdom, at Hilo, Hawaii, last week, & by a funny circumstance, he knew everybody that ever I knew in Hannibal & Palmyra. We used to sit up all night talking, & then sleep all day. He lives like a Prince.’ - Twain.²⁴

“John Lorimer Graham had the wealth and social status to marry into a Hawaiian aristocratic family as he was the son of Malcom and Ann Douglas Graham of New York City.

“Malcom was one of the wealthiest men in the country as he was one of the founders of Schuyler, Hartley and Graham, the largest gun manufacturer and supplier to the Union during the Civil War, and as such his son would have met the approval of Coney who was from New York, and his wife who instructed her children to turn away from their Hawaiian Alii roots.

“The couple wed in Honolulu Dec 17,1885 and this was reported in several English language Newspapers in the Islands. They steamed to New York afterward; her first trip to the US. They entertained Princess (Later Queen) Liliuokalani in their flat when she visited New York before her trip to Europe to attend the Jubilee of Queen Victoria.

“For a summer home, Malcom Graham bought the estate of the President of the NY and NJ Railroad E. Boudinot Colt who had built "Harbourage" at 29 Ward Ave in Rumson on the bluff in 1884 and remodeled it. The "Register" indicated the remodeling would make the home one of the most elegant on the Rumson Bluff. Malcolm died in 1899 of typhoid he contracted while in Rumson for the summer.

“John L.'s wife Eleanor would likely have wanted to meet any Hawaiian, having been taken away from her home and culture and thus the ad to find the surfer girl makes perfect sense. She was also not happy with her marriage.

“Sadly their marriage did not last, and they were divorced by 1891. Eleanor and her children traveled with the now overthrown Queen Liliuokalani from SF east as she appealed to the US federal government to restore her to the throne. Eleanor later married Dutch painter Hubert Vos who eventually took her back to Kauai where she lived for a time at Nawiliwili. Her portrait painted there by Vos is beautiful.

“Graham traveled the world, living in Australia, becoming a minister and dying on the Isle of Jersey.

“I spoke to Skipper Funderberg for a long time Sunday. We agree its unlikely that the definitive identification of the girl on the Police Gazette will likely never be resolved, but she is legendary and romantic, and these little facts only add to the mystery.

“However, being intrigued, I am informally following logic. The Philadelphia article mentions her father was a wealthy hawaiian planter visiting New York with an importer.

“Given Planter's Monthly in 1888 offers the name of virtually every plantation operation manager, and the owners/investors are available through other sources, its a matter of finding evidence that one of them with an appropriate age daughter visited the east coast during the Summer of 88. This is not a needle in a haystack, but a few hundred stalks of hay.

“The great historians of the sugar plantations in the islands have made this too easy not to look into...”²⁵

Many Americans on the U.S. Mainland had learned of surfing in a Harper's Weekly story about Hawaiian surf riders that was published in the early 1880s. It appeared in the Red Bank Register in April 1883.

So far, the earliest surfing on the U.S. East Coast -- that has been successfully documented -- is in 1909, when Burke Haywood Bridgers rode waves standing up on a surfboard at Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. However, if the “Sandwich Island Girl” can be proven to have existed and surfed, she may push the date back for East Coast surfing 20 years and move it 600 miles up the coast to Asbury Park. As it stands now, her importance in surfing’s history is that she represents the earliest known illustration of a surfer standing up, riding a surfboard on a wave, in the continental United States.

Additional Details

Sandwich Island Girl 5

Sandwich Island Girl 4

Sandwich Island Girl 3

Sandwich Island Girl 2

Sandwich Island Girl 1

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¹  National Police Gazette, 18 August 1888, p. 1.

²  “Sandwich Island Girl,” LEGENDARY SURFERS, 23 March 2006, http://files.legendarysurfers.com/blog/2006/03/sandwich-island-girl.html

³  National Police Gazette, 18 August 1888, p. 14.

⁴  LEGENDARY SURFERS, 21 July 2006. Comment by “bfrank.”

⁵  “Sandwich Island Girl 2,” LEGENDARY SURFERS, 22 April 2006 - http://files.legendarysurfers.com/blog/2006/04/sandwich-island-girl-2.html. DeSoto Brown quoted.

⁶  “The Ka’iulani Board,” LEGENDARY SURFERS, http://files.legendarysurfers.com/surf/legends/ls04_kaiulani.html.

⁷  “Sandwich Island Girl 2,” LEGENDARY SURFERS, 22 April 2006 - http://files.legendarysurfers.com/blog/2006/04/sandwich-island-girl-2.html. DeSoto Brown quoted.

⁸  Geoff Cater’s Surfresearch, aka Pods For Primates, http://www.surfresearch.com.au/1888_Police_Gaztte_SIG.html - viewed 29 November 2016.

⁹  “Sandwich Island Girl 4”, LEGENDARY SURFERS, 3 May 2006 - http://www.legendarysurfers.com/2006/05/sandwich-island-girl-4.html

¹⁰  “Sandwich Island Girl 3”, LEGENDARY SURFERS, 24 April 2006 - http://www.legendarysurfers.com/2006/04/sandwich-island-girl-3.html. Craig Lockwood quoted.

¹¹  “Sandwich Island Girl 3”, LEGENDARY SURFERS, 24 April 2006 - http://www.legendarysurfers.com/2006/04/sandwich-island-girl-3.html. Craig Lockwood quoted.

¹²  “Sandwich Island Girl 3”, LEGENDARY SURFERS, 24 April 2006 - http://www.legendarysurfers.com/2006/04/sandwich-island-girl-3.html. Craig Lockwood quoted.

¹³  “Sandwich Island Girl 3”, LEGENDARY SURFERS, 24 April 2006 - http://www.legendarysurfers.com/2006/04/sandwich-island-girl-3.html. Craig Lockwood quoted.

¹⁴  “Sandwich Island Girl 5,” LEGENDARY SURFERS, 29 June 2010 - http://www.legendarysurfers.com/2010/06/more-on-sandwich-island-girl.html. Excepted from Skipper Funderberg’s article “Sandwich Island Girl Hangs Five,” at www.carolinabeach.net, 1 June 2010.

¹⁵  “Sandwich Island Girl 5,” LEGENDARY SURFERS, 29 June 2010 - http://www.legendarysurfers.com/2010/06/more-on-sandwich-island-girl.html. Excepted from Skipper Funderberg’s article “Sandwich Island Girl Hangs Five,” at www.carolinabeach.net, 1 June 2010.

¹⁶  “Sandwich Island Girl 5,” LEGENDARY SURFERS, 29 June 2010 - http://www.legendarysurfers.com/2010/06/more-on-sandwich-island-girl.html. Excepted from Skipper Funderberg’s article “Sandwich Island Girl Hangs Five,” at www.carolinabeach.net, 1 June 2010.

¹⁷  “Sandwich Island Girl 5,” LEGENDARY SURFERS, 29 June 2010 - http://www.legendarysurfers.com/2010/06/more-on-sandwich-island-girl.html. Excepted from Skipper Funderberg’s article “Sandwich Island Girl Hangs Five,” at www.carolinabeach.net, 1 June 2010.

¹⁸  “Sandwich Island Girl 5,” LEGENDARY SURFERS, 29 June 2010 - http://www.legendarysurfers.com/2010/06/more-on-sandwich-island-girl.html. Excepted from Skipper Funderberg’s article “Sandwich Island Girl Hangs Five,” at www.carolinabeach.net, 1 June 2010.

¹⁹  Funderberg, Skipper J. Letter to SHACC and Malcolm, 1 January 2017, send in email 3 January 2017 with three scans of the newspaper items referenced.

²⁰  Funderberg, Skipper J. Letter to SHACC and Malcolm, 1 January 2017, send in email 3 January 2017 with three scans of the newspaper items referenced. New material from the newspapers quoted.

²¹  Radel, Dan. “Asbury ‘Sandwich Island Girl’ clue may upend East Coast surfing history,” Asbury Park Press, 1 August 2018.

²²  Radel, Dan. “Asbury ‘Sandwich Island Girl’ clue may upend East Coast surfing history,” Asbury Park Press, 1 August 2018.

²³  Dicks, Vinnie. Email to Malcolm, copy of correspondence sent to Desoto Brown, Bishop Museum, 7 August 2018.

²⁴  Dicks, Vinnie. Email to Malcolm, copy of correspondence sent to Desoto Brown, Bishop Museum, 7 August 2018. Mark Twain quoted.

²⁵  Dicks, Vinnie. Email to Malcolm, copy of correspondence sent to Desoto Brown, Bishop Museum, 7 August 2018. Mark Twain quoted.