PHYLLIS WALSH: TITANIC-ERA DEBUTANTE, CANOE-SURFER, LAW-BREAKER

Phyllis Walsh was born to a wealthy Philadelphia banking family in 1897. She was outgoing and athletic and like all East Coast elites from the period, she spent her summers at the shore—in Walsh's case, that meant Ventnor City, three miles down the coast from Atlantic City.

Walsh attended private schools in New England, rode horses, hunted foxes, socialized with Vanderbilts and Rockefellers. She became one of the best tennis players in America, worked as an ambulance driver for the French Army during World War I, became friends with Vaudevillian great Sophie Tucker, wrote a sports column for the New York Daily News, worked as stockbroker, and later managed a celebrity-aimed dude ranch in Nevada.

Walsh first made headlines, however, as a "clever and rather daring" teenaged canoe surfer—and her passion for riding waves would soon put her in conflict with the Ventnor City authorities.

Read a lengthy first-person account of Walsh's life here. The short collection of articles below covers a two-year period from 1913 to 1915, and focuses on the canoe Ventnor incident.

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"Ventnor Bathers Seen on Beach: Young Set of Philadelphia Summer Colony and Ventnor Promenade on Strand," Press of Atlantic City, July 16, 1913

Summer visitors and local devotees of ocean bathing throng the Ventnor beach daily. Ball games have been an added attraction for the male set, but these have been abandoned, owning to the possible chance of accidents. Canoeing seems to be the reigning sport, the fair sex participating in this form of amusement.

Miss Phyllis Walsh, of South Cornwall Ave, is seen daily, wearing a suit of black satin, with blue collar and cuffs, and a wide blue sash encircling the waist. A cap of bright blue completes this attractive beach costume. Miss Walsh is an expert canoeist, and is frequently accompanied by her cousins, Mr. Samuel Huhn and Mr. John Huhn, sons of the Philadelphia banker Mr. George A. Huhn.

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"Clever Canoeists," Atlantic City Gazette-Review, July 13, 1914

Everyone likes to watch a pretty girl, but when the girl wears a stunning bathing suit and does some very clever and rather daring stunts with the canoe, far out in the ocean, you may be certain that there will be a number of admirers watching from the Boardwalk and beach.

Yesterday Miss Phyllis Walsh, granddaughter of George C. Huhn, a Philadelphia banker, was the center of attraction with Roy Bookmeyer, also of Philadelphia, for the manner in which they cleverly managed their canoe in the rough surf off the Ventnor beach, before a crowd of friends and residents.

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"Society Girl in Clash with Guard," Atlantic City Daily Press, August 28, 1915

Accused of disorderly conduct, in that she is alleged to have extended to lifeguard Robinson an invitation to a warmer climate when reprimanded for shooting her canoe at express-train speed through bathers on the Ventnor beach, Miss Phyllis Walsh, granddaughter of Samuel P. Huhn, Philadelphia banker, enacted the role of defendant before Magistrate James Hand at Ventnor yesterday morning.

There was a fashionably-gowned, intensely interested audience in attendance, and gasps were audible throughout the courtroom as the magistrate informed Miss Walsh that her remarks to the lifeguard were uncalled for and "anything but ladylike."

Rebellion smouldered in the eyes of the fair defendant, who is a prime favorite among the exclusive Ventnor set, but she closed her lips firmly and left in the midst of a bevy of excited girlfriends when the magistrate informed her that her case would be taken under advisement.

"Shooting the breakers" in her canoe is one of the pet diversions of Miss Walsh, and the skill she has acquired in this difficult form of sport has been the admiration of Ventnor beach since the opening of the season. She struck a woman bather recently while riding on the crest of a giant comber, and a ban was placed on canoes along the bathing beaches. In violation of the beach rule she was again engaged in riding the breakers when her clash with the lifeguard occurred.

Said Magistrate Hand:

"We want everyone in Ventnor to enjoy themselves and bathers particularly should not be subjected to any danger. We consider canoes dangerous to the bathers and have placed certain restrictions. All must obey the rules laid down irregardless of their wealth and position. I want the lifeguards to enforce the rules no matter whom they are obliged to bring in for disobedience. It was the duty of the lifeguard, who is a full-fledged officer of the law, to summon you into this court for an infraction. He was obliged to perform that duty, and had he neglected he would have made himself liable for dismissal."

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"Phyllis Walsh Rude to Guard," Atlantic City Gazette-Review, August 28, 1915

Miss Phyllis Walsh, one of the best-known of the younger social set at Ventnor, was arraigned before Judge Hand in the Ventnor Recorder's Court yesterday morning of a charge of disorderly conduct.

The charge was brought by lifeguard Robinson, whom Miss Walsh is alleged to have advised to descend to a certain place of punishment when he accosted her for breaking the beach regulations in driving her canoe amongst a bunch of bathers at Ventnor on Thursday afternoon.

It was an elite throng which replaced the usual morbid onlookers in the Recorders's Court yesterday morning when the granddaughter of Samuel P. Huhn, the Philadelphia banker, was called to answer the charges proffered against her.

It was brought out that Miss Walsh, who is a skillful and daring canoeist, had been told to land her canoe above or below the part of the beach used for bathers. Thursday, she ignored the request and, riding her canoe on the top of a heavy swell, shot in among the bathers and knocked down and injured one of the women bathers.

When lifeguard Robinson remonstrated with her for her carelessness, Miss Walsh told him "where he might go" explicitly. The guard did not relish the language she used and reported her to the proper authorities. Miss Walsh was requested to appear in the court to answer the charges brought against her.

Miss Walsh claimed that she was obliged to land where she did because of the strong tide. Her canoe, she said, became unmanageable.

The case is being held under advisement while the injuries of the woman who was knocked down are being investigated.

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"Rain Dampens Ardor of Girl's Champion: Lifeguard Escapes 'Scolding' from Miss Walsh's Friend," Atlantic City Sunday Press, August 29, 1915

Many Ventnorites were on the beach yesterday afternoon to see what an indignant champion of Miss Phyllis Walsh would do to the lifeguard who had the young woman arrested Thursday.

This champion, a close friend of sixteen-year-old Miss Phyllis, who is the granddaughter of Samuel Huhn, the Philadelphia banker, announced that he was going to attend to that young lifeguard, who is William Robinson.

"I'm going to hunt that chap up tomorrow,” announced this friend Friday afternoon, darkly, “and tell him what I think of him.” So Ventnor was on the qui vive. The rain, however, is believed to have dampened his ardor, for he didn’t “show.”

It Is charged that Miss Phyllis used cruel words to the lifeguard when he warned her to take her canoe away from the bathers. In fact, it is declared that Miss Phyllis advised him to take himself to an extremely warm climate. Thereupon Miss Phyllis was arrested. Recorder Hand took the matter under advisement.

Miss Walsh, who is the daughter of Mrs. Florence Huhn Walsh, 6012 Rexel Road, Overbrook, declares she didn’t say what the lifeguard avers she said.

Young Robinson is the son of Mr. and Mrs. W. P. Robinson, of College Avenue, Haverford. He formerly was a student at Haverford School and now Is taking a course at Penn. His family has a cottage at Ventnor, and Robinson has been a lifeguard for two summers.

It is said that in the past he and Miss Walsh have been good friends, even skating together last winter on the Haverford College pond.

"Miss Walsh Defends Her 'Go to Hades' – So Sorry She Hit Bather and So 'Mad' at Beach Guard That She Just 'Told Him,'" Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger, August 30, 1915

What will Beach Guard William Robinson do if pretty Miss Phyllis Walsh’s canoe, with a stately Judge in it, goes wild again and hits another bather?

Will the guard reprimand the Judge and arrest him? These are questions that, speaking In the vernacular, have Ventnor "up In the air."

Miss Walsh, the granddaughter of George A. Huhn, the banker, of this city, caused quite a stir In Atlantic City when she was arrested for telling Robinson, a former friend, to go to "Hades" when she was reprimanded because her canoe, forced in by a heavy sea had struck a bather. When the details were explained at the hearing, the Ventnor colony sympathized with the pretty defendant—and to the amazement of all, so did the Judge.

The hearing was conducted with all dignity until Judge Hand upset the court decorum by saying: "Case dismissed—but I'd like to take a ride with you."

The fashionable audience gasped.

"You mean In the ocean—In the canoe?” stammered Miss Walsh.

"Sure," said his Honor,

“It’s a go," said the girl, and, after the red tape that characterizes all such hearings was disposed of, the court adjourned.

When the canoe In which Miss Walsh was riding struck a woman bather on the arm [a few days ago], Beach Guard Robinson, a University of Pennsylvania student who lives In Haverford, reprimanded the girl before a large crowd and ordered her from the beach. He also charged her, according to Miss Walsh, with deliberately coming into the crowd. The girl, becoming exasperated, told him as “politely” as possible “to go to hell.” She was immediately arrested by the guard, who until that day was a good friend of hers.

Miss Walsh says she paid Robinson a small sum to take care of her canoe. The other week the payment dropped behind, as she had forgotten to bring the money to the beach. Robinson, she says, later took her to task In front of a crowd when she took a paddle of his by mistake. He told her, she says, that It belonged to a man “who had paid up,“ and attempted to take it away from her. She tossed It up on the boardwalk and the crowd laughed. Robinson was furious, she declared, and, apparently nursing a grudge, jumped at the chance to reprimand her when her canoe got into trouble Friday.

Miss Walsh laughingly denied the reports that she had hit the guard with a paddle. “Of course, they are ridiculous,“ she said today. “I didn't hit him."

But the whole affair began a week ago.

“It's this way," she went on. “I had an agreement with Billy [Robinson] to watch my canoe if I paid him $4. It happened that I'd forgotten to bring the money to the beach. I meant to each day, but somehow I forgot, and besides Grandpa always gives him a tip of $10 a year, and I thought he wouldn't mind. One day, I found one of my paddles missing from under the canoe. So thinking Billy probably was keeping the other in the tent, I went over and took one out. They all look alike, and the next thing I knew, Billy was yelling, "Come back with that paddle." If he’d only acted decently about It, I would have done it, but there were a lot of 'chickens' looking at us and he was trying to be fresh. He added that It belonged to a man who had paid him $6, and that he wasn't going to bother looking after mine when I hadn't paid him anything. Then he tried to pull it away from me and I threw it on the boardwalk, while everybody laughed at him. He was furious.

"The day of the accident I was shooting my canoe away out from the bathers when a big wave hit the canoe and knocked it broadside. The current did the rest. I steered the thing the best I could, for I knew If I jumped out It would hit a lot of people. As it was, it did hit a woman on the arm. Our doctor fixed her up, though, and she went in bathing again. Billy rushed out and said I'd have to get right off the beach. Oh, golly! I was so sorry I'd done it, and so mad at him for telling me that I had deliberately come In among the bathers, that I said, 'Billy, you go to hell.' Then he told me I was under arrest. The Judge was awfully fair, and said he wanted to go out with me. But, between you and me, don't you think it was a pretty poor thing to do, telling a Judge a girl swore at you?"