As printed on the site
Forty members, not seventy
Two versions of the same sentence give two different numbers. The 2002 about page, the source for wave one's founding note, said Historic Accommodations of Cape May had over 70 members. A 2011 copy of the about page, captured under the title "About Cape May Historic Accommodations," said the coalition had over 40.
Both sentences describe the same organization, founded, in both versions, in 1980. Only the count moved, and a third source, a few years later, settles which figure a visitor could actually check.
What the 2011 page actually said
The 2011 page's wording was precise: "a coalition of over 40 members, including Bed Breakfast Inns, Guesthouses, Suites, Apartments and Historic Hotels." That is the same five-part membership wave one already described from the 2002 sentence, with the same categories in the same order, minus guest suites standing as their own word in this phrasing. The number is the only thing that changed between the two versions of the sentence.
The 2011 page did not explain the drop. It did not say members had left, that the association had tightened its criteria, or that the 2002 figure had been an overcount. It simply printed a lower number nine years later, in a sentence otherwise built the same way, down to the founding year and the membership categories themselves.
Nothing else on the 2011 page hints at a cause. There is no note about a membership drive, a recession, or a change in how the association defined a qualifying property. The sentence stands on its own, the way the 2002 sentence also stood on its own.
A number that can be checked against a list
The 2014-2015 version of the site, built on a different platform, printed an actual roster instead of a round number. Its "All Accommodations" page listed named properties one by one, each with a posting date attributed to an "admin" account. Counting that list by hand gives exactly 40 names, running alphabetically from Albert Stevens Inn to Windward House.
Forty counted names against a sentence that says "over 40" is as close to a match as these archives get. The 2002 sentence's "over 70" has no equivalent list to check it against anywhere in this archive. Wave one printed the 54 names the 2002 bed-and-breakfast page gave, but that list covered one category only, not the full membership the "over 70" sentence was describing across all five categories.
A round number with a matching countable list, even a few years apart, is stronger evidence than a round number standing alone. The 2014 roster is the only place in this whole archive where the member count can be verified name by name rather than taken on faith.
Why a list beats a round number
A sentence that says "over 40" can be true at 41 members or true at 90. A list of 40 named properties is falsifiable by counting it, which is what makes it worth more than either round number on its own. It does not resolve the gap between 70 and 40; it only confirms that by the time there was a countable roster, the roster matched the lower figure rather than the higher one.
The founding-year page already keeps 1980 as a constant across every version of the site this project has found. The member count is not a constant in the same way. Treating "over 70" as the current figure, or "over 40" as a silent correction of an earlier error, would both be guesses this archive does not support with printed evidence.
| Source | Member figure | Countable list |
|---|---|---|
| 2002 about page | Over 70 | No full-membership list in this archive |
| 2011 about page | Over 40 | No full-membership list on that page |
| 2014 All Accommodations page | Not stated as a sentence | 40 named properties, counted by hand |
What this changes for a reader comparing lodging
Anyone weighing a historic Cape May stay against a newer hotel property elsewhere on the Jersey Shore is, in effect, weighing a roughly 40-name roster against a much shorter list of large branded properties in most comparable towns. Forty named buildings, each built before the association's own age cutoff, is a wide field for a single historic district. Reading "over 70" as the live figure would overstate that field; reading "over 40" as a current ceiling undercounts what the 2014 roster shows outright by name.
The practical number, on the evidence available across three separate captures, is the counted one: 40. It is also the one figure in this whole comparison that a visitor could verify independently, simply by counting the same page this article counted, name by name, rather than trusting a sentence written by the association about itself.
A traveler choosing between a single large hotel and a scattered roster of 40 smaller historic properties is also choosing a different kind of search: one phone call to a front desk, against a roster that, on the hotline's own design covered in wave one, routed through a single shared number before reaching any individual address.
Reading the gap honestly
The honest summary is not "the association shrank" or "the earlier number was wrong." It is narrower: three captures of the same organization's self-description gave three different signals, and only one of them, the 2014 roster, can be checked against an actual list of names rather than taken as a round claim printed without support. That is the same caution this project applied to the 1910 construction cutoff in wave one, where a printed rule mattered more on its own terms than a single convenient number extracted from it.
A visitor should treat "over 40, confirmed by 40 named properties" as the figure worth repeating in conversation, and treat "over 70" as a separate, earlier claim from a separate capture that this archive cannot independently verify against any list. Neither figure should be rounded up or down further than the source material already supports on its own, and neither should be presented as a current count of anything beyond what each specific capture actually printed at the time it was written and published online, years before this comparison was made.
Questions
Why does this matter if both are historic sources?
Because a reader deciding how many lodging options exist in Cape May gets a different answer from 70 than from 40. The lower, countable figure is the one with an actual list behind it.
Did the association actually shrink?
The archive does not say. It shows two different sentences and one countable list. It does not hold a membership record explaining the change between them.
Does the 40 include hotels as well as inns?
Yes. The 2014 All Accommodations list mixes all five categories from the 2011 sentence into one roster of 40 names.