Basking Ridge made big-time society news in 1901 when a runaway New York heiress hid out at the Washington House for several days. Helen Bloodgood, age 18, the daughter of William Bloodgood of the American Felt Company disappeared from her 83 Irving Place home in Manhattan on September 19, 1901. The New York World reported that her family feared she may have been kidnapped.
In reality, Miss Bloodgood, travelled to Basking Ridge, which was close to where she had summered in 1900. She checked into the Washington House Hotel and stayed several days before being recognized by the hotel manager, reportedly R. T. Troxell [sic]. The manager was undoubtedly Raymond B. Troxell (1874-1965), who appears as a “hotel keeper” in Basking Ridge on the 1900 Census.[1] The girl’s mother immediately came to fetch her.
Miss Bloodgood apparently objected to constant supervision by a governess.
Read the full story in The New York World.
Helen Bloodgood died in Lakewood, N.J., in 1910.
UPDATE (9/17/2025): Helen Bloodgood was prone to running away and was placed under nursing supervision. Her death at Lakewood, NJ, in 1910 was apparently a suicide.
New Egypt Press
March 18, 1910
GIRL’S BODY RECOVERED
The body of Miss Helen Bloodgood was found at 3:30 o’clock Saturday afternoon in the waters of Lake Carasaljo, at Lakewood, in ten feet of water, thirty feet from the shore, off what is called the Laurel-in-the-Pines point.
It was brought by the finders to the kissing bridge, and there it awaited for an hour the arrival of the coroner from Toms River, who allowed the body to be removed to an undertaking parlor, where it was prepared for burial.
Mr. and Mrs. Bloodgood were at the time of the discovery of the body out in an automobile scouring the country around the village for news of the daughter.
The finding of the body in Lake Carasaljo indicates that the girl escaped from the home on Wednesday morning in the manner stated by the nurses at the beginning of the search. She evidently darted down Seventh street, then through the private way, over by Georgian Court, the residence of George J. Gould, and at that point, in all probability, took her leap into the waters of the lake.
[1] 1900 Census, Bernards Twp., Basking Ridge, NJ, ED 73, Sheet 4A. Troxell later managed the U.S. Hotel in Morristown.
