Captain Wilmon Whilldin

The first Wilmon Whilldin Sr. was born on March 4, 1773 not far from Cape May. In his early life he moved to Philadelphia where he studied navigation. Considered a pioneer in steam navigation, he was to navigate his steamers, one of them The Delaware, between Philadelphia and what was then still called Cape Island, as well as other points.

In the interests of their business, Wilmon and other captains built steamboat landings at Cape May Point and Higbee Beach, the latter to receive notoriety many years later when nudists landed there for their days in the sun. Long before that, though, when people usually clothed their bodies in public, the stage coach owners were not all that happy that the steamboat entrepreneurs were adding to their competition.

Wilmon lived to April 2, 1852. Soon after he died, planning began for a Cape May toll turnpike from Court House to Cape May where Route 9 is today. It is ironic that today’s Route 9 is a free road while parallel to it is much of the toll Garden State Parkway.

A descendant of John Howland, a passenger on the Mayflower who is known for signing the governing document of the Mayflower Compact.

The 100-foot ship left England in September of 1620 with 162 passengers and a crew of 30. But Howland almost didn’t reach the ship’s destination. A violent storm threw him overboard but he quickly grabbed a halyard and he was hauled back to the deck safely.

Many of the Mayflower’s descendants are buried here at the Cold Spring cemetery of the Presbyterian Church in Lower Township, Cape May, New Jersey. It claims to have more Mayflower descendants than any other cemetery in the nation except at Plymouth, Mass.

One of them is Wilmon Whilldon the first.

(Some of the information in this article was researched at the reference department of the Cape May Count Library and via the Historical Society of Palm Beach County in Florida.)

Surviving the father was his son Wilmon Jr. An earlier son, Dr. John Galloway Whilldin, a physician, had died of consumption in Philadelphia at the age of 41.