Est. 1881 · Only surviving structure built from the emergency railroad that transported President Garfield in 1881 · Adjacent Church of the Presidents hosted seven U.S. presidents · James Garfield died September 19, 1881 in Long Branch
James A. Garfield, the 20th President of the United States, was shot by Charles J. Guiteau at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad station in Washington D.C. on July 2, 1881, just four months into his term. The bullet lodged near his spine, and his attending physicians — despite his initial prognosis being cautiously optimistic — repeatedly probed the wound with unsterilized fingers and instruments, introducing infection that would ultimately kill him.
In late August, Garfield's physicians recommended the sea air of the New Jersey shore as a possible restorative. He was to be transported to a cottage in Elberon, a section of Long Branch. The problem was that the Elberon cottage was 3,200 feet from the nearest rail line. Long Branch residents organized an overnight effort on the evening of September 5-6 to lay a temporary spur track connecting the Elberon property to the main rail line. Volunteers, including workers and local citizens, completed the work in under 24 hours. Garfield arrived by train on September 6.
He died at the Elberon cottage on September 19, 1881, seventy-nine days after being shot. The actual cause of death was sepsis induced by medical mismanagement of the wound rather than the bullet itself.
Actor Oliver Doud Byron later acquired the emergency rail ties and used them to construct the tea house that now stands on the Long Branch Historical Museum grounds at 1260 Ocean Ave. One of the original iron rails was incorporated as the ridgepole. The adjacent Church of the Presidents, a wooden structure that hosted seven sitting or former U.S. presidents, survived on the same grounds. Both are managed by the Long Branch Historical Museum Association.
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garfield_Tea_House
- https://monmouthtimeline.org/timeline/u-s-president-james-a-garfield-dies-in-elberon/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_A._Garfield
The Garfield Tea House carries no established ghost story in the documented record, which distinguishes it from many sites tied to sudden death or tragedy. What the structure offers instead is something more verifiable: the railroad ties and ridgepole rail from the emergency spur track are the physical material through which a dying president was moved in his final weeks.
Some visitors and local accounts associate the site with an ambient sadness, the sense of a building constructed as a kind of monument to a botched rescue. President James Garfield, shot by an assassin in Washington in July 1881, survived the bullet for 79 days before dying of infections caused by his own doctors. The tea house, built from the evidence of that failed effort, sits within sight of the Long Branch shoreline where he was taken to recover.
The Church of the Presidents adjacent to the tea house added to the site's presidential death resonance: of the seven presidents known to have worshipped there, several were assassinated or died in office. No formal investigation or haunting claim is documented for either structure.
Notable Entities
James A. Garfield
Where this legend is told
