Long_Branch

Long Branch, a city of Monmouth county, New Jersey, U.S.A., on the easternmost or “long” branch of the Shrewsbury river and on the Atlantic coast, about 30 m. S. of New York City. Pop. (1890) 7231; (1900) 8872, of whom 1431 were foreign-born and 987 were negroes; (1910 census) 13,298. It is served by the Pennsylvania, the Central of New Jersey, the New York & Long Branch, and electric railways, and by steamboats to New York. The carriage roads in the vicinity are unusually good. Long Branch is one of the oldest American watering-places. It is situated on a bluff which rises abruptly 20-35 ft. above the beach, and along the front of which bulkheads and jetties have been erected as a protection from the waves; along or near the edge of the bluff, Ocean Avenue, 60 ft. wide and about 5 m. long (from Seabright to Deal), commands delightful views of the ocean. A “bluff walk” runs above the water for 2 m. The city has one public park, Ocean Park (about 10 acres), and two privately owned parks, one of which is Pleasure Bay Park (25 acres), on the Shrewsbury river, where operas are given in the open air. The principal public institutions are the Monmouth Memorial Hospital and the Long Branch Circulating Library. In Long Branch the Monmouth County Horse Show is held annually in July. The southern part of Long Branch, known as Elberon, contains some beautiful summer residences—in one of its cottages General U. S. Grant spent his summers for many years, and in another, the Francklyn, President J. A. Garfield died in 1881. In 1909 a monument to Garfield was erected in Ocean Park. Adjoining Long Branch on the N. is the borough of Monmouth Beach (incorporated in 1906; population, 1910, 485). Before the War of Independence the site of Long Branch was owned by Colonel White, a British officer. It was confiscated as a result of the war, and late in the century its development as a watering-place began. Long Branch was chartered as a city in 1904.

LONGCHAMP, WILLIAM (d. 1197), chancellor of England and bishop of Ely, entered public life at the close of Henry II.’s reign as official to the king’s son Geoffrey, for the archdeaconry of Rouen. Henry II., who disliked him, called him the “son of two traitors.” He soon deserted Geoffrey for Richard, who made him chancellor of the duchy of Aquitaine. He always showed himself an able diplomatist. He first distinguished himself at Paris, as Richard’s envoy, when he defeated Henry II.’s attempt to make peace with Philip Augustus (1189). On Richard’s accession William became chancellor of the kingdom and bishop of Ely. When Richard left England (Dec. 1189), he put the tower of London in his hands and chose him to share with Hugh de Puiset, the great bishop of Durham, the office of chief justiciar. William immediately quarrelled with Hugh, and by April 1190 had managed to oust him completely from office. In June 1190 he received a commission as legate from Pope Celestine. He was then master in church as well as state. But his disagreeable appearance and manners, his pride, his contempt for everything English made him detested. His progresses through the country with a train of a thousand knights were ruinous to those on whom devolved the burden of entertaining him. Even John seemed preferable to him. John returned to England in 1191; he and his adherents were immediately involved in disputes with William, who was always worsted. At last (June 1191) Geoffrey, archbishop of York and William’s earliest benefactor, was violently arrested by William’s subordinates on landing at Dover. They exceeded their orders, which were to prevent the archbishop from entering England until he had sworn fealty to Richard. But this outrage was made a pretext for a general rising against William, whose legatine commission had now expired, and whose power was balanced by the presence of the archbishop of Rouen, Walter Coutances, with a commission from the king, William shut himself up in the Tower, but he was forced to surrender his castles and expelled from the kingdom. In 1193 he joined Richard in Germany, and Richard seems to have attributed the settlement soon after concluded between himself and the emperor, to his “dearest chancellor.” For the rest of the reign Longchamp was employed in confidential and diplomatic missions by Richard all over the continent, in Germany, in France and at Rome. He died in January 1197. His loyalty to Richard was unswerving, and it was no doubt through his unscrupulous devotion to the royal interest that he incurred the hatred of Richard’s English subjects.

Authorities.—Benedictus, Gesta Henrici, vol. ii.; Giraldus Cambrensis, De Vita Galfridi; Stubbs’ Preface to Roger of Hoveden, vol. iii.; L. Bovine-Champeaux, Notice sur Guillaume de Longchamp (Évreux, 1885).