At the New Bedford Whaling Museum one can take a trip through time and imagine life aboard a whaling ship, or working in a stitching mill, or harvesting cranberries – industries that saw their heydays come and go or become mechanized.

But there was also another way of life – one that featured a different type of existence, a different type of lifestyle, a “Golden Era” – the era of the Sippican Hotel.

The museum currently has an exhibit of memorabilia from the era of the Sippican Hotel that aids the visitor’s experience and understanding of what life must have been like when the wealthy gathered to spend a few weeks in the summer under the same roof.

From the museum’s press release we find: “During the late 1800s and early 1900s, the Sippican Hotel was a cornerstone of what became The Golden Age of Marion…. [I]t began after the Civil War, when it evolved from a sleepy seaside village to a summer gathering place for artists, writers, actors, musicians, and other intellectual leaders and celebrities such as President Grover Cleveland, Henry James, and artist Charles Dana Gibson … known as the Golden Age of Marion. At its peak, the Sippican Hotel represented the finest elegance and style in the time of high culture in Marion’s history.”

On August 3 – a perfect summer’s evening indeed – many gathered at the New Bedford Whaling Museum to hear the story of that once-famous summer retreat of the rich and famous.

Sponsored by the Sippican Historical Society, the evening’s reception and presentation by SHS Vice President David K. Pierce was nothing short of transporting.

Pierce, through his knowledge of Marion’s history and slideshow of historic images, took the audience on a journey from Marion’s earliest days when tribes of the Wampanoags roamed the wooded landscape, through the early 1900s, which saw the rise and fall of the Sippican Hotel.

Pierce said that in the early 1600s, Bartholomew Gosnold became the first European to reach the area, landing in Cuttyhunk and then traveling through Buzzards Bay, which he named Gosnold’s Hope.

Pierce also detailed the forces that came to bear upon the Wampanoags bringing them to their knees, namely the arrival of more Europeans with their unknown diseases and attacks by the Penobscots of Maine, tragedies that severely reduced the local Indian population.

By the end of King Phillip’s War in 1676, the English arrived in numbers settling in and around Marion. For the next 120 years or so, Marion would be just another quiet fishing and agrarian community along the coast.

By the end of the Civil War, Marion was beginning to be discovered for more than its ability to sustain life. It was becoming a place where artists, intellectuals, and even a few well-known political types found pleasure in leisure activities and in socializing with one another.

In 1864, a farmhouse owned by Joseph Luce, Pierce said, was converted into the Bayview Hotel. A few years later, the structure would be expanded to satisfy growing demands for more rooms and private bath facilities. The Bayview would become the Sippican Hotel with as many as 200 rooms shoehorned into the small lot located at what is today the corner of Water and South Streets.

Pierce said entire families would decamp their residences and arrive, many by rail, each summer ready to be installed in their familiar rooms. Some visitors even had their own pianos transported to Marion for the season. Pierce said that it was common practice for husbands to shuttle between their permanent residences and the hotel, spending weekdays at their labors and returning to Marion on the weekends.

Just as water seeks its own level, the visitors who stayed at the Sippican Hotel were only the very well healed and the very notable.

“It was a very exclusive place,” Pierce proclaimed, adding, “If you are rich and famous you want to stay with the rich and famous.” It cost the princely sum of $2 a day to stay at the hotel, he said.

While most of those living in Marion were still living modest lives, increasingly those with cash in hand were arriving at the hotel. Open from May until early October, the Sippican Hotel provided seasonal jobs for the locals while those they attended to could see and be seen.

To entertain the pleasure seekers, a casino was built across the street on the shoreline. There, the summer revelers could play games, take a sailboat ride, or splash in the water. The annual barrel boat race for the children was one such activity, Pierce said.

“People have asked me why there aren’t any hotels or motels in Marion nowadays,” Pierce said. He said that upon the closing of the Sippican Hotel in 1929 and the eventual demolition of the structure, the land was sold for development.

Pierce learned from a local government official that long ago house lots had been acquired by those who could invest in property situated along Sippican Harbor. Those properties became private summer retreats. He also said the current bylaws do not allow the construction of motels or hotels in Marion. Inns and Bed and Breakfast facilities are permitted if they meet zoning regulations.

The era of the massive summer resort where ladies in long white dresses shaded under parasols strolling along the village streets headed for the casino and an afternoon of tea and cards is a thing of the past. Today there isn’t a remnant of the hotel – Marion’s Golden Era is now a golden memory.

To learn more about the Sippican Hotel and the era in which it was a landmark in Marion, visit the Whaling Museum exhibit open through November or visit the Sippican Historical Museum, located at 139 Front Street in Marion, open Tuesday 9:00 am – 1:00 pm, Wednesday 9:00 am – 1:00 pm and, and Saturday 9:00 am – 1:00 pm. At the Sippican Historical Museum you can thumb through a copy of curator Pete Smith’s book Post Card History of Marion where images of the Sippican Hotel may be found. You may also visit www.sippicanhistoricalsociety.org.

By Marilou Newell