New Book Shares Bayville's Hidden Waterfront History

BAYVILLE, NJ — Patrick Filan admits that he is not a historian. He's not an author or even a big reader, either. But he wanted to document a small area of land in Bayville, sitting on the mouth of the Toms River in the Good Luck Point area, and ended up turning that history into a book.

"I am just a homeowner with a strong interest in preserving our local history," Filan writes in the introduction of his new book, "Footprint: Our Waterfront History of Bayville, New Jersey."

"Footprint" tells the history of a small but important part of Bayville - the Swiss Cottage/Swiss Inn, which had a false narrative perpetuated about it for many years. Originally built as a vacation home for New Yorkers, it was later turned into an inn with a bar, which sparked controversy with residents of the dry town of Island Heights.

A tale was spun through decades that the building was a "real Swiss cottage" set up at the Centennial World's Fair that had been bought by a rich bachelor who bought it, took it apart and rebuilt it in Bayville in 1906. This was not true, as Filan found out.

Filan sets the record straight in the book. He has a personal interest in correcting the record. His home sits on the estate of the former inn, though the inn itself is no longer in existence.

"Nobody really knows the true history of it until they read that book," Filan told Patch. "Because all these years, they've just had the wrong history on it."

Though the Swiss Cottage was built in 1871 and most of the book revolves around it and its owners, the history in the book dates back to the 1600s, discussing how the Lenni-Lenape Native Americans used to summer in the Island Heights, until the Dutch arrived.

Filan took Patch on a tour of the area covered in the book, showing where there used to be railroad tracks across the river to Seaside.

"You would have thought that this would be a quiet river," Filan said. "But it was the exact opposite."

In writing the book, Filan did a great amount of research, talking to various local historical societies, combing through old newspaper clippings and reading documents. Everything written in the book can be backed up with facts, he said.

Filan covers pretty much everything in the book, from Native Americans, to Dutch settlers, to alcohol-related controversy with Island Heights residents, to drownings at Swiss Cove, even to potential paranormal activity.

Filan hopes to inspire others into looking into local history, whether in Bayville or elsewhere. To find out what else he discovered, though, you'll have to read the book for yourself.

You can buy "Footprint" at Amazon, Target, Barnes and Noble and Bookshop.org.