1
10
15
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
People
Description
An account of the resource
Residents of Cooper Street
Person
An individual.
Biographical Text
While living in a rowhouse apartment at 229 Cooper Street, Michael Giocondo joined others in the Catholic Left in an act of civil disobedience against the Vietnam War. The "Camden 28," as they came to be known, were caught in the act of breaking into the draft board office in the federal building at Fourth and Market Streets to destroy and steal draft records. Their action and subsequent trial made national news and inspired a documentary film.<br /><br />Giocondo, a Franciscan friar who had been teaching English in Costa Rica, came to Camden in the early 1970s to work with a parish in the city's Puerto Rican community. He left the Franciscan order, but stayed in Camden and founded El Centro, a social service agency, and trained to be a substance abuse counselor.<br /><br />The 1971 break-in at the draft office in Camden was one among many similar actions across the United States that aimed to disrupt the draft and question the justice and morality of the Vietnam War. Giocondo played a fateful role in the local break-in when he invited a friend, Robert Hardy, to join the planning group. In addition to aiding the planning, Hardy became an informant for the FBI, leading to the arrests and charges against 28 people allegedly involved.<br /><br />Seventeen of the defendants, including Giocondo, went to trial at the Camden federal building in 1973. Testimony called the Vietnam War into question, and the defendants argued that the federal government had over-reached with its informant's active role in staging the break-in. The judge instructed the jury that acquittals could be granted on the basis of governmental over-reach, and the jury concurred by finding all of the defendants not guilty. The <em>New York Times</em> described the verdict as "the first total legal victory for the antiwar movement in five years of such draft-record incidents." Following the trial, charges were dropped against the remaining members of the Camden 28.<br /><br />Giocondo left Camden after the trial and later worked as a journalist covering the labor movement in New York and Chicago. He returned to the city for a reunion with the Camden 28 filmed for the documentary <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0808190/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>The Camden 28</em></a> (2007). He retired to Florida, where <a href="https://peoplesworld.org/article/mike-giocondo-85-fighter-for-justice-at-home-and-abroad/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">he died in 2014</a>. The rowhouse where he lived in the 1970s stood at the northwest corner of Third and Cooper, now a parking lot for Rutgers-Camden dormitories.
Time period on Cooper Street
Early 1970s
Location(s) - Cooper Street
229 Cooper Street (northwest corner, Third and Cooper)
Location(s) - Other
Federal Building, Fourth and Market Streets
Birth Date
c. 1929
Birthplace
Syracuse, New York
Death Date
2014, in Jacksonville, Florida
Sources
<em>The Camden 28, </em>dir. Anthony Giacchino. (Available to view on YouTube: <a href="https://youtu.be/EcdWk74LQdw" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">click here</a>.)<br /><br />Camden 28 Documents: <a href="http://www.camden28.org/master.html?http://www.camden28.org/thestory.htm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">click here</a>.<br /><br />"<a href="https://peoplesworld.org/article/mike-giocondo-85-fighter-for-justice-at-home-and-abroad/">Mike Giocondo, 85: Fighter for Justice at Home and Abroad</a>." <em>People's World, </em>April 23, 2014.<br /><br />News coverage of the Camden 28 in Camden and Philadelphia and the <em>New York Times.</em><em></em>
Research by
Charlene Mires
Posted by
Charlene Mires
Send corrections to cmires@camden.rutgers.edu
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Giocondo, Michael
Description
An account of the resource
During the Vietnam War era, Michael Giocondo participated in the "Camden 28" raid on draft board headquarters.
1970s
200 Block
229 Cooper Street
Activism
Adult
Catholics
Male
Social Justice
Vietnam
-
https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/files/original/0bbd79ebafd8edf59bc80dc8af39f8c4.jpg
e13f19db68465ae2b4f99c509addff59
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
People
Description
An account of the resource
Residents of Cooper Street
Person
An individual.
Time period on Cooper Street
1867-88
Location(s) - Cooper Street
228 Cooper Street
Location(s) - Other
105 Cove Road, Pennsauken Township/Merchantville
Birth Date
c. 1840
Birthplace
Burlington County
Death Date
April 1, 1912
Biographical Text
Among the many women who headed households on Cooper Street, Sallie Ackley had a distinction: In 1867, while still in her 20s, she independently contracted for construction of a new home. The three-story Italianate townhouse at 228 Cooper Street survived into the twenty-first century. It represents a young woman's story of survival in the wake of tragedy and offers a connection to the early nineteenth-century settlement of Camden.<br /><br />Sallie Ackley was born into the Wilkins family, early settlers of Burlington County. Her grandfather, Isaac Wilkins, moved to Camden to go into the lumber business on the Delaware River waterfront, and in 1814 he purchased lots at Third and Cooper Streets as well as Third and Market. These properties passed by inheritance through the Wilkins family, including the land for 228 Cooper Street.<br /><br />Sallie Wilkins became Sallie Ackley in 1864, when she married a local doctor, Henry Ackley, at St. Paul's Episcopal Church. Her new husband had recently returned from service as U.S. Navy surgeon, but with his health irreversibly damaged by a bout with yellow fever aboard the USS San Jacinto in the Gulf of Mexico. He and Sallie had little more than a year together before he died of tuberculosis in December 1865. Six weeks later, Sallie gave birth to their son, Henry Wilkins Ackley, whom she had baptized at St. Paul's in July. Another tragedy followed, however, when the child died just short of his first birthday. It was the latest in a long line of family losses, in that Sallie's parents also had died during the war years.<br /><br />Although tragic, the circumstances conferred both independence and resources on Sallie Ackley, enabling her to contract for the house at 228 Cooper Street. The land was then owned by her brother, <a href="http://www.dvrbs.com/People/CamdenPeople-RichardCWilkins.htm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Richard C. Wilkins</a>; it stood adjacent to her grandfather's former property on the corner of Third and Cooper, which had passed by inheritance to her aunt Eliza Davis. Sallie paid $7,500 to Harden and Brothers Contractors to build the house, and she specified the Trenton stone facade unlike anything else on the block. By 1870, at age 28, she headed a household consisting of her brother Richard, a 23-year-old veteran of the Civil War; her aunt Eliza (then age 73, she sold the corner house next door); and two domestic servants. Her activities included serving as a manager for the <a href="http://www.dvrbs.com/camden/CamdenNJ-Home-Friendless-Children.htm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Camden Home for Friendless Children</a>, and in 1874 she bought the land under her house from her brother for $1,000.<br /><br />Sallie Ackley's life took a new turn by 1877, when she married a Camden bank teller, Nathan F. Cowan. They continued to live at 228 Cooper Street while rearing three healthy sons, two of them twins. Around 1888, they followed the trend of many of Cooper Street's professional-class families and moved to a suburban home on the Pennsauken Township border with Merchantville.
Associated Individuals
Isaac Wilkins (grandfather)
Richard M. Wilkins (father, died 1861)
Elizabeth Ann Coate Wilkins (mother, died 1861)
Richard C. Wilkins (brother)
Henry Ackley (first husband, died 1865, buried Woodlands Cemetery, Philadelphia).
Henry Wilkins Ackley (son, died 1867, buried Woodlands Cemetery Philadelphia)
Nathan F. Cowan (husband)
William Cowan (son)
Herbert Cowan (son)
Edgar Cowan (son)
Sources
Building Contracts, Camden County Historical Society. Camden/Gloucester County Deeds (Familysearch.org).<br /> Camden and Philadelphia Newspapers (Newspapers.com).<br />New Jersey State Census; New Jersey Church Records, Birth Records, and Death Records (Ancestry.com).<br /> U.S. Census, 1860, 1870, 1880.<br /><br /> Photographs of the Wilkins family, including Sallie and Richard, are posted on the <a href="http://www.dvrbs.com/People/CamdenPeople-RichardCWilkins.htm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">website dvbs.com</a>.
Research by
Charlene Mires, Robbie DeSimone, and Lucy Davis. Photograph above, 228 Cooper Street in 2019, by Jacob Lechner.
Posted by
Charlene Mires
Send corrections to cmires@camden.rutgers.edu
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Ackley, Sallie (Wilkins)
Description
An account of the resource
In the wake of the Civil War, a young widow contracted for a new house to be built at 228 Cooper Street.
1860s
1870s
1880s
200 Block
228 Cooper Street
Adult
Childhood
Civil War
Death
Extended Family
Female
Investment
Italianate
Widows
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
People
Description
An account of the resource
Residents of Cooper Street
Person
An individual.
Time period on Cooper Street
C. 1845-1883 (property owner, possible resident c. 1847-50 and 1855-60)
Location(s) - Cooper Street
413-415-417 Cooper Street.
Location(s) - Other
Philadelphia; 416-418-420-422 Lawrence Street, Camden.
Biographical Text
In a city atlas of Camden published in 1877, a name appears diagonally across the lots numbered <a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/items/show/70" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">413</a>, <a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/items/show/45" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">415</a>, and <a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/items/show/48" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">417</a> Cooper Street: Hannah Atwood. Yet Hannah does not otherwise appear in records of Camden residents, such as city directories or the Census. Who was she, and why did she own property where she seldom lived?<br /><br />A clue lies in the nomination of Cooper Street for the National Register for Historic Places, which documents a sale of land from Richard Cooper to Hannah Atwood in 1845, more than thirty years prior to the atlas. The transaction, which the nomination associates with 413 Cooper Street, would have been among the first sales of Cooper family land on the north side of Cooper Street. The nomination provides a further clue, an undated later transfer of the land to Hannah's granddaughter, Clara V. Fisher, and a sale of 413 Cooper Street by Charles P. Fisher (Clara's husband) in 1883.<br /><br />The rest of the story, as it emerges from records of the lives of Hannah Atwood and her family, reveals more about the development of Camden in the nineteenth century and the economic strategies of a married woman whose husband, an artist, was frequently absent and dependent on patrons for income. Jesse Atwood, born in New Hampshire, was an itinerant portrait painter who became best known for a journey to Mexico to paint General Zachary Taylor during the Mexican-American War (while living in Camden in 1847, he created a bust based on the portrait and offered it for sale). He also painted portraits of presidents, including Abraham Lincoln, and promoted this work to entice other patrons as he traveled.<br /><br />According to <em>Who's Who in American</em> <em>History</em>, Hannah and Jesse Atwood came to Philadelphia from Rhode Island around 1830, which may have been shortly after their marriage. They had at least two children while Jesse pursued his art in a city known for institutions such as the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where he displayed his work in 1841. He also traveled to Deerfield, Massachusetts (1832), and Richmond, Virginia (1841), among other places. His trip to Mexico to paint Zachary Taylor was covered in the press, as was his opportunity to paint Abraham Lincoln in Illinois shortly after Lincoln's election.<br /><br />Hannah, who had been born Rhode Island, was about 45 years old when she purchased the Camden property in 1845 (and a second adjoining lot in 1846). It was not unusual for Philadelphians to purchase investment property in Camden during the nineteenth century, and that seems to have been Hannah's purpose. When she later bequeathed her property to her granddaughter, she described the process of collecting rents and maintaining the property in good order. During the 1840s and 1850s the Atwoods added to the value of the property, which spanned fifty feet on Cooper Street, by building seven houses. Three faced Cooper Street, and four smaller houses faced Lawrence Street in the rear. Two of the houses, built in 1853 at <a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/items/show/45" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">415</a> and <a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/items/show/48" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">417</a> Cooper Street, attracted notice in the Philadelphia <em>Public Ledger: </em>"Mr. Atwood has nearly finished two exquisitely, ornamentally and conveniently arranged dwelling houses on Cooper Street. They are fine additions to the improvements of that part of the city." <br /><br />Hannah's presence can be traced only through her marriage to Jesse, who was listed in Camden and Philadelphia city directories. The Atwoods lived in Camden during the late 1840s and again between 1855 and 1860, but otherwise they lived in Philadelphia. Throughout the 1860s and 1870s, other tenants occupied row houses on Hannah's Cooper Street land--among them, a widow and her daughter who generated their own income by taking in boarders.<br /><br />Jesse Atwood died in Philadelphia in 1870, at the age of 79, and Hannah lived until 1883. Both are buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery. Hannah's will specified the houses at 415 and 417 Cooper Street as bequests to her granddaughter, without mentioning the adjoining property at 413. Although her will envisioned the houses as an ongoing source of independent income, Clara Fisher sold both to a new owner by 1888. Separately, Clara's husband sold 413 Cooper Street in 1883. Hannah Atwood's long record of ownership on Cooper Street faded from memory.
Occupation
Property owner
Birth Date
c. 1800
Birthplace
Rhode Island
Death Date
1883 in Philadelphia, buried Laurel Hill Cemetery
Associated Individuals
Jesse Atwood (husband)
George Atwood (son)
Sarah Miller Atwood (daughter-in-law, wife of George)
Mary Atwood (daughter)
Clara Virginia Atwood Fisher (granddaughter, daughter of George and Sarah)
Charles Perry Fisher (son-in-law, husband of Clara)
Edith Gay Fisher (great-granddaughter, daughter of Clara and Charles)
Richard Fisher (great-grandson, son of Clara and Charles)
Ellen M. Gay (sister, living in New York City)
Gamelia Gay (brother-in-law, husband of Ellen)
George Grace (boarder in Philadelphia home, 1880)
Sources
Camden and Philadelphia City Directories (Ancestry.com).<br /> Holzer, Harold. <em>Lincoln, President-Elect: Abraham Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter, 1860-61 </em>(New York, Simon and Shuster, 2008), 88.<br />Hopkins, G.M. <em>City Atlas of Camden, New Jersey</em> (1877), Camden County Historical Society.<br />New Jersey Wills and Probate Records (Ancestry.com). U.S. Census, 1860, 1870, and 1880.<br /><em>Philadelphia on Stone Biographical Dictionary of Lithographers </em>(Library Company of Philadelphia).<br />Sandweiss, Martha A. <em>Print the Legend: Photography and the American West </em>(Yale University Press, 2002), 27.<br /><em>Who's Who in American History </em>(Marquis Biographies Online).
Research by
Charlene Mires
Send corrections to cmires@camden.rutgers.edu
Posted by
Charlene Mires
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Atwood, Hannah
Description
An account of the resource
Investing in Camden real estate provided steady income to an artist's wife for nearly 40 years.
1840s
1850s
1860s
1870s
1880s
400 Block
413 Cooper Street
415 Cooper Street
417 Cooper Street
Adult
Artists
Female
Investment
Philadelphia
Rhode Island
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
People
Description
An account of the resource
Residents of Cooper Street
Person
An individual.
Biographical Text
<p>By all outward appearances, Henry Coy led a relatively unremarkable but prosperous middle-class life for roughly 15 years when he lived in the block of Cooper Street that later became Johnson Park. Only after his death in 1881 did rumors arise that created a macabre legend about Coy and his family. But were the rumors true?<br /><br />Coy, a Canadian, arrived in the Philadelphia-South Jersey region by 1858 and by 1860 lived at 101 Cooper Street, a three-story brick house that had been standing at the northeast corner of Front and Cooper since the late eighteenth century. His journey to the region may have included time in Massachusetts, where his wife, Sarah, was born. In 1860, at age 35, he headed an extended family household that consisted of Sarah, then age 25; their eight-month-old daughter, Mary Hannah; two women and a child who may have been Sarah's relations; and two servants. By 1870, the Coy family expanded to five children. Sarah Coy's mother, Mary, also lived with the family for a time and died at 101 Cooper Street in 1866, at age 74.<br /><br />To support the family, Coy commuted by ferry across the Delaware River to Philadelphia, where he worked as an agent for Wheeler & Wilson sewing machines. The company, based in Bridgeport, Conn., had emerged quickly during the late 1850s as the leading manufacturer of sewing machines, largely for industrial use. Coy had the only Wheeler & Wilson shop in Philadelphia, in second-floor space at 628 Chestnut Street; he offered machines and operators for hire as well as stitching done in the office. In addition to supporting his family, the income allowed for some minor luxuries, including two carriages and a gold watch.<br /><br />Around 1870, Coy left the sewing machine business to become a manager for the S.S. White Dental Manufacturing Company, the Philadelphia-based leading maker of high-quality dental instruments. He not only led the instrument-making shop, he also designed and made instruments himself. Forceps, mallets, punch instruments, and other dental tools bearing his maker mark, HC, remain in the <a href="https://temple.pastperfectonline.com/byperson?keyword=Coy%2C+Henry&page=2" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Historical Dental Museum</a> at Temple University and other collections.<br /><br />The Coy family left Cooper Street in 1874 and moved about three miles eastward to Stockton Township, Camden County, and from there to Palmyra in Burlington County. Henry Coy continued in the dental instruments business until his death in 1881.<br /><br />The next year, on May 1, 1882, a bizarre story appeared in the <em>Camden Morning Post:<br /><br /></em>AFTER TWENTY YEARS.<br />A FATHER'S ECCENTRICITY<br />Three Dead Bodies which a Camden Man Refused to Have Buried<br /><br />The report claimed that three bodies recently buried in Palmyra were long-dead children of Henry Coy. And, most shockingly, that during his years on Cooper Street Coy had kept the remains in coffins in his home. "He was a very eccentric man," said the <em>Post</em>, "and it is said he was unwilling to make the acquaintance of any one near him, and that he has found great pleasure during these long years, in sitting for hours at time in the room with the caskets containing his departed children."<br /><br />The tale, reprinted in the <em>Philadelphia Inquirer</em>, reappeared in a much longer, more obviously fictional version eleven years later. Published first in the <em>Philadelphia Times </em>in a section devoted to "Life's Thrilling Side," and then picked up again in Camden by the <em>Morning Post</em> on June 19, 1893, the new version retained the story about the deceased children. But it also spun a highly elaborate description of Coy (this time named Philip, "a long-bearded, impenetrable Canadian") and his haunted mansion replete with secret closets, concealed panels, vaults, and a coffin-shaped cupola. Attributing new details to two caretakers of the property after the Coys moved out, the 1893 version of the story portrayed a haunted house that echoed with sounds of infants wailing and feet shuffling in the cellar. For readers of the late nineteenth-century, the story may have offered a racist clue to its fictional nature by attributing the ghost stories to "Cyrus Green, an old colored man" and his wife, Sarah. Camden readers would have spotted an obvious confusion of references to the "Cooper mansion," which was not the house the Coys occupied, and other errors of local details. Philip was the name of Henry Coy's adult son who died in 1892, prior to publication of the second story.<br /><br />The Coy story also appeared in a pamphlet about Camden historic houses in 1920, characterized as a "rumor." Could there be any truth to the legends of the Coy family?<br /><br />The records of the family across the U.S. Census of 1860, 1870, and 1880 show no disappearing names of children, and hence suggest no deaths. However, New Jersey birth records document an earlier child, and perhaps twins, born in Camden to Henry Coy on March 7, 1858 (the records do not name the mother, and it is unclear whether two very similar records for the same date are duplications or documentation for twins). No Coy children of this age appear in the 1860 Census, so the 1858 infant or infants are unaccounted for.<br /><br /> Some elements of the later stories may suggest a plausible explanation: in the 1893 version, Coy is reported to have buried deceased twins in a Haddonfield cemetery without a proper funeral. It is conceivable--but speculation--that after his death in 1881, children buried elsewhere might have been exhumed to be buried with him in Palmyra. This would account for the story about burials that appeared in 1882, and at least one other Cooper Street family is known to have moved an earlier-buried child to rest with a later-deceased parent. Indeed, the Coys have a large, <a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/46885440/henry-coy" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">enclosed family plot in the Epworth Methodist Church Cemetery</a> with just one headstone that is perhaps revealing in its silences: "Henry - Sarah S Coy / And Family."</p>
Time period on Cooper Street
c. 1858/60-1874
Location(s) - Cooper Street
101 Cooper Street (northeast corner of Front and Cooper, later Johnson Park)
Location(s) - Other
Philadelphia
Stockton Township, Camden County
Palmyra, Burlington County
Occupation
Sewing machine dealer (prior to 1870)
Dental instrument designer/manufacturer (after 1870)
Birth Date
c. 1825
Birthplace
Kingston, Ontario (Canada West)
Death Date
September 2, 1881 in Palmyra, Burlington County, N.J.
Associated Individuals
Sarah Coy (wife)
Mary Hannah Coy (daughter)
Elizabeth Coy (daughter)
Philip H. Coy (son)
Susan Coy (daughter)
Hellen Coy (daughter)
Susan, Haddie, and Addie Brown (possible relatives of wife Sarah)
Mary Seger (mother-in-law)
Ada Robbins Coy (daughter-in-law, married son Philip)
Lydia Everson (servant)
Jane Wilson (servant)
Emma Everman (servant)
Samuel Stockton White (employer at S.S. White Dental Manufacturing Co., Philadelphia)
Sources
"After Twenty Years." <em>Camden Morning Post, </em>May 1, 1882.<br />Boyer, Charles S. "The Old Houses in Camden, New Jersey." <em>Annals of Camden, </em>Vol. 1 (privately published, 1920).<br />"Camden's Pet Ghosts." <em>Camden Morning Post, </em>June 19, 1893.<br />Camden City Directories, Camden County Historical Society (Ancestry.com).<br />Edmunson, James M. <em>American Surgical INstruments: The History of Their Manufacture and a Directory of Instrument Makers to 1900 </em>(Novato, Calif: Norman Publishing, 1997), 61.<br />New Jersey Births and Christenings Index (Ancestry.com).<br />"S.S. White Dental Manufacturing Co." in Matos, William, comp. <em>Philadelphia: Its Founding and Development, 1683-1908 </em>(Philadelphia, 1908), 324.<br />U.S. Census, 1860, 1870, 1880.<br />"Wheeler and Wilson Manufacturing Co." in Hounshell, Davis, <em>From the American SYstem to Mass Production, 1800-1932: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States </em>(Baltimore: Johns Hopkinson University Press, 1985), 68-75.
Research by
Charlene Mires
Send corrections to cmires@camden.rutgers.edu
Posted by
Charlene Mires
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Coy, Henry
Subject
The topic of the resource
Description
An account of the resource
Did the Coy family harbor a secret in their home at 101 Cooper Street?
100 Block
101 Cooper Street
1850s
1860s
1870s
1880s
1890s
Adult
Canada
Childhood
Death
Dental Implements
Ghost Stories
Johnson Park
Male
Massachusetts
Newspapers
Palmyra
Philadelphia
Sewing Machines
Stockton Township
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
People
Description
An account of the resource
Residents of Cooper Street
Person
An individual.
Biographical Text
During the 1920s, a leader in public health who helped Camden respond to epidemics and keep its children healthy, lived for five years at 417 Cooper Street. These were the culminating years of Dr. Henry Hill Davis's long service as medical inspector for Camden's public schools. <br /><br />A native of Crosswicks, Burlington County, Davis came to Camden in the 1870s after graduating from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. While many physicians during the late nineteenth century gravitated toward Cooper Street and the vicinity of the recently opened Cooper Hospital, Davis opened both a pharmacy and medical practice in Kaighn Point. In 1899, he was appointed medical inspector for Camden's public schools--the first post of its kind in New Jersey and only the second in the nation, after New York City. Davis instituted annual physical examinations for Camden pupils and required vaccinations before any child could be admitted to school.<br /><br /> While continuing in this work for the schools, Davis was among the leaders in founding a new Camden Municipal Hospital for Contagious Diseases, which opened in 1916, and he served for twenty years as president of the Camden Board of Health. Over his long career, he led Camden's responses to smallpox outbreaks and the influenza epidemic of 1918-19.<br /><br />Davis and his wife, Harriett, rented the row house at 417 Cooper Street beginning in 1920; Davis was by this time 70 years old and his wife nine years younger. Their previous address had been 522 Linden Street, which was soon to be enveloped by construction activity for the Delaware River Bridge (later renamed the Benjamin Franklin Bridge). While at 417 Cooper, Davis continued in his post as medical inspector until retiring in 1925. The city honored him not only with a pension but also by giving his name to a new public school--still operating in 2020 as the <a href="http://camdencitydavis.ss12.sharpschool.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Dr. Henry H. Davis Family School</a> in East Camden. A street near the former site of the Municipal Hospital <a href="http://www.dvrbs.com/camden-streets/CamdenNJ-Streets-DavisStreet.htm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">also bears his name</a>.<br /><br />In retirement, the Davises moved to Toms River, New Jersey, where they owned a home. There, Henry Davis's life came to a tragic end at the age of 78 in April 1929 when he was hit and killed by an automobile. The <em>Camden Courier-Post</em> took the opportunity when reporting his death to deliver a public health message: already during the first four months of the year, 55 people in South Jersey had been killed in crashes involving automobiles.
Time period on Cooper Street
1920-25
Location(s) - Cooper Street
417 Cooper Street
Occupation
Physician, Medical Inspector for Camden Schools
Birth Date
c. 1851
Birthplace
Crosswicks, N.J.
Death Date
April 10, 1929
Associated Individuals
Harriet Davis, wife
Sources
Camden City Directories and U.S. Census (Ancestry.com).<br />Camden<em> Courier-Post</em> (Newspapers.com).
Research by
Charlene Mires
Posted by
Charlene Mires
Send corrections to cmires@camden.rutgers.edu
Location(s) - Other
522 Linden Street (previous address)
563 Benson Street (previous address)
Third Street and Kaighn Avenue (pharmacy and practice, beginning 1870s)
Crosswicks, New Jersey
Toms River, New Jersey
Philadelphia
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Davis, Dr. Henry H.
Description
An account of the resource
A leader in public health, Dr. Henry Hill Davis lived at 417 Cooper Street for five years prior to his retirement in 1925.
1920s
400 Block
417 Cooper Street
Activism
Adult
Aging
Automobiles
Burlington County
Doctors
Health and Medicine
Male
Philadelphia
Schools
Toms River
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
People
Description
An account of the resource
Residents of Cooper Street
Person
An individual.
Time period on Cooper Street
c. 1876-88 (boarding)
c. 1892, 1903 (buildings)
Location(s) - Cooper Street
415 Cooper Street
514 Cooper Street (designed by Baily & Truscott for William T. Read, 1903)
538-42 Cooper Street (designed by Baily & Truscott for John W. Cheney, c. 1892)
726 Cooper Street (designed by Arthur Truscott for Lynn Truscott, 1888)
Location(s) - Other
19 Springfield Avenue, Merchantville (Truscott family home, c. 1892-1930s)
New Jersey Trust and Safe Deposit Building, Third and Market Streets, Camden (designed by Arthur Truscott, 1888)
Baily & Truscott office, 138 S. Fourth Street, Philadelphia
Drexel University, Philadelphia
Blackwood, New Jersey
Columbia, Tennessee
Occupation
Architect
Birth Date
December 4, 1858
Birthplace
Cornwall, England
Death Date
September 12, 1938, in Blackwood, New Jersey. Buried in Harleigh Cemetery.
Biographical Text
For at least twelve years, between 1876 and 1888, English immigrant Arthur Truscott boarded at 415 Cooper Street while establishing a career in architecture in Philadelphia. His work included notable buildings for Camden, including houses on Cooper Street and the New Jersey Safe Deposit & Trust Company building at Third and Market Streets.<br /><br />Truscott arrived in the United States in 1875, at the age of 18, and by 1876 he appeared in Camden city directories as a boarder in the 415 Cooper Street home of <a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/items/show/44" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jerusha Browning</a>, a member by marriage of the prominent Browning family of South Jersey. In addition to Arthur, the boarders at 415 Cooper included his two brothers, J. Lynn Truscott (four years older) and Millwood Truscott (two years younger). Arthur's brothers both established long-term, prosperous careers in the insurance industry, following in the footsteps of an uncle already in Camden: John W. Cheney. The Truscott brothers became active in the nearby St. Paul's Protestant Episcopal Church, and Lynn Truscott eventually married into the extended Browning family.<br /><br />While living at 415 Cooper Street, Arthur Truscott gained architectural training in a series of leading Philadelphia firms, including <a href="https://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/ar_display.cfm/21576" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Wilson Bros. & Co</a>. and <a href="https://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/ar_display.cfm/23024" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Cope & Stewardson</a>. By 1888, when he left Cooper Street, he had published house plans in <a href="https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/godeys-ladys-book/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>Godey's Lady's Book</em></a>, and he demonstrated his range in commercial as well as residential architecture with at least two buildings in Camden. For his brother Lynn, Truscott designed a double-lot gray stone home at 627 Cooper Street (later demolished for construction of the Walt Whitman Hotel). He also designed a four-story office building at Third and Market Streets for the New Jersey Safe Deposit & Trust Company. By 1990, when buildings associated with the banking, insurance, and legal professions in Camden were added to the National Register of Historic Places, Truscott's Victorian Eclectic building for New Jersey Trust was the oldest surviving structure designed for specific use as a bank. <br /><br />Truscott left New Jersey for about two years, 1888-90, to serve as architect for a federal arsenal in Columbia, Tennessee (also later listed on the National Register). When he returned, he formed a partnership with Philadelphia architect William Lloyd Baily, and among many other commissions for residences and churches, Truscott & Baily added four houses to the 500 block of Cooper Street: three of them the trio of Chateauesque stone townhouses for Truscott's uncle, John W. Cheney, at 538-42 Cooper Street (built c. 1892). The facades were preserved as part of the buildings for the LEAP Academy Charter School. About a decade after the Cheney project, in 1903, Baily & Truscott produced the very different red-brick Colonial Revival home at 514 Cooper Street for William T. Read.<br /><br />Truscott, meanwhile, married and designed a home for his family in Merchantville, then a suburban enclave attracting Philadelphia and South Jersey professionals, including a number of prominent architects. His household there, from the 1890s through the 1930s, included his wife, Alice, four children, his mother-in-law, and domestic servants. After the dissolution of the Baily partnership in 1904, Truscott became head of the architecture program at the Drexel Institute (later Drexel University); he was a supervising architect for Camden High School, built on Park Boulevard 1916-18, and late in his life, he worked as a draftsman for a Philadelphia firm specializing in church architecture, <a href="https://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/ar_display.cfm/18688" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Charles Bolton & Son</a>. At the time of his death in 1938, he was living in Blackwood, New Jersey; he is buried in Camden, in Harleigh Cemetery.<br /><br /><em>Find illustrations of Arthur Truscott's work and further biographical details in "Arthur Truscott" online at <a href="http://www.dvrbs.com/people/CamdenPeople-ArthurTruscott.htm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">dvrbs.com</a>.</em>
Associated Individuals
J. Lynn Truscott (brother); married Mary Cooper Paul Browning
Millwood Truscott (brother); married Carrie Weatherby
Jerusha Browning (head of household at 415 Cooper Street)
Margaret Browning (daughter of Jerusha Browning)
George Cole (also resident at 415 Cooper Street, 1885)
Anna Browning (also resident at 415 Cooper Street, 1885)
Kate Browning (also resident of 415 Cooper Street, 1885)
Edward P. Browning (also resident at 415 Cooper Street, 1888-89)
Alice Parry, wife (married 1889)
Arthur S. Truscott (son), served as aviator in British Royal Air Force during World War I; died from accidental gas inhalation at Truscott family home in 1935.
Alice Truscott (daughter)
W. Parry Truscott (son)
Catharine F. Truscott (daughter)
Anna G. Parry (mother-in-law)
Lolie Dangrigred (?), servant in 1900, African American born in Virginia
Dorinda Barrett, servant in 1910, African American born in Pennsylvania
William Lloyd Baily, business partner, 1890-1904
John W. Cheney, uncle (related through Cheney's wife Emily Cook; Truscott's mother was Susan Frances Matilda Cook); client, 538-42 Cooper Street
William T. Read, client, 514 Cooper Street
Sources
Banks, Insurance and Legal Buildings in Camden, New Jersey, 1873-1938, Nomination, National Register for Historic Places, U.S. Department of the Interior.<br />Berenson, Carol A., <em>Merchantville, New Jersey: The Development, Architecture, and Preservation of a Victorian Commuter Suburb </em>(Thesis, Graduate Program in Historic Preservation, University of Pennsylvania), 1984.<br />Camden City Directories, New Jersey State Census, U.S. Census (Ancestry.com).<br /> Camden Newspapers (Newspapers.com).<br />Cooper Street Historic District Nomination, National Register of Historic Places, U.S. Department of the Interior.<br /> "<a href="https://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/ar_display.cfm/21581" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Truscott, Arthur (1858-1938)</a>, Philadelphia Buildings and Architects, Athenaeum of Philadelphia.
Research by
Charlene Mires and Lucy Davis
Posted by
Charlene Mires
Send corrections to cmires@camden.rutgers.edu
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Truscott, Arthur
Description
An account of the resource
While boarding at 415 Cooper Street, architect Arthur Truscott launched his career in Philadelphia.
415 Cooper Street
514 Cooper Street
538 Cooper Street
540 Cooper Street
542 Cooper Street
627 Cooper Street
Adult
Architects
Banking
Blackwood
England
Immigrants
Insurance
LEAP Academy
Male
Merchantville
Philadelphia
Tennessee
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
People
Description
An account of the resource
Residents of Cooper Street
Person
An individual.
Biographical Text
Joshua B. (for Benjamin) Franklin, who purchased 415 Cooper Street as well as the adjacent 417 Cooper Street in 1903, was a livery stable operator whose lifetime spanned to the age of the automobile.<br /><br />Franklin, born in 1861, moved from his family's farm in Burlington County to Camden during the city's fast-growing 1880s, when he was 21. He went to work for his uncle Joseph Franklin at the livery stable on Second Street between Cooper and Market and continued the business after his uncle's death. The Franklins became well known in Camden as they rented horses and carriages to the city's social and political elite. The business had a good location close to the Delaware River ferry crossings to Philadelphia and apparently yielded a good living, as Joshua Franklin purchased two other homes, at 224 Linden Street and 116 Cooper Street, before acquiring 415 and 417 Cooper. He joined fraternal organizations, including Lodge 15 of the Free and Accepted Masons.<br /><br />Franklin and his family lived in 415 Cooper while renting out the house next door. He improved the properties by adding wood front porches, in keeping with similar additions elsewhere on the block. He may have added the bay windows to the second and third floors, which are evident in an aerial photograph of Camden taken c. 1926 but not in a photograph of the block earlier in the twentieth century.<br /><br />When Franklin moved into 415 Cooper Street, his family consisted of his wife of 15 years, Mollie, and their 4-year-old daughter Edith. He was a notable enough in the community to cause his daughter's fifth birthday party to be reported in the <em>Camden Courier Post.</em> His personal fortunes soon took a tragic turn, however. Little Edith contracted typhoid fever and died in February 1907 at the age of 8, news that "came as a painful shock to various sections of the city where the family is well known," the <em>Courier-Post </em>lamented. By the end of the same year, Mollie Franklin also died, from the effects of a longstanding heart ailment. She was 38 years old.<br /><br />In the wake of these personal tragedies Joshua Franklin remained at 415 Cooper Street, and his community connections may explain the prominent tenants he attracted to his investment property next door: the dentist Elmer Bower, for example, and the medical inspector for Camden schools, Henry Davis. In 1909, Joshua Franklin was married for a second time, to Chellie Smith, a widow who had been working as a saleswoman for several years since her husband's death. Joshua and Chellie continued to live at 415 Cooper Street for the next 25 years, at times renting rooms to others.<br /><br />At the livery stable, Joshua Franklin suffered two serious injuries: in 1913, a severely broken arm that was treated by Dr. E.A.Y. Schellenger at Fifth and Cooper Streets, and in 1914 a near-electrocution that occurred during a Nor'easter when a live wire fell onto a telephone before Franklin picked up the receiver. The burns required treatment at Cooper Hospital.<br /><br />The appearance of automobiles in Camden during the first two decades of the twentieth century brought change and eventually the end of Franklin's livery stable. As his customers preferred their new automobiles to carriages pulled by horses, Franklin's business dealt more often with commercial clients, such as the city newspapers who still used horses to pull their delivery trucks. Franklin himself entered the automobile business with partners between 1921 and 1923, but by then in his 60s he retired and closed the stables as well. He continued to live at 415 Cooper Street with his wife, Chellie, until he died at home in 1938. In reporting his death, the <em>Camden Morning Post</em> recounted how his 78 years of life had spanned the age of liverymen to the age of the automobile.
Time period on Cooper Street
1900-38
Location(s) - Cooper Street
116 Cooper Street (1900-3)
415 Cooper Street (residence, 1903-38)
417 Cooper Street (rental property, 1903-38)
Location(s) - Other
Second Street between Cooper and Market (livery stable)
224 Linden Street (home prior to 1900)
39 N. Fourth Street and 47 N. Third Street (automobile businesses)
Burlington County (boyhood home)
Occupation
Livery stable operator
Automobile dealer
Birth Date
October 1861
Birthplace
Burlington County, New Jersey
Death Date
February 21, 1938, at home, 415 Cooper Street; burial in Harleigh Cemetery.
Associated Individuals
Mollie Campbell Franklin (first wife)<br /> Edith Campbell (daughter)<br /> Chellie Jones Smith Franklin (second wife)<br /> Etta Smith Eppler (daughter of second wife)<br /> George Franklin (brother)<br /> S.R. Franklin (brother)<br /> Joseph Franklin (uncle)<br /> Mrs. Joseph Johnson (sister)<br />Conly D. Brooks (partner in automobile business, 1921)<br /> Residents of 417 Cooper Street, 1903-38, see <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15gz3_mGk3FcNl0TPaOZAq6B1CHvOpqRcY7a99xkp_l4/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Cooper Street Database</a>.
Sources
Camden City Directories, New Jersey and U.S. Census Records, 1900-1940 (Ancestry.com)
Camden County Property Records
Camden Newspapers, 1900-1952 (Newspapers.com)
Research by
Charlene Mires
Posted by
Charlene Mires
Send corrections to cmires@camden.rutgers.edu
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Franklin, Joshua B.
Description
An account of the resource
Originally a livery stable operator, Joshua Franklin's life on Cooper Street spanned to the age of the automobile.
116 Cooper Street
1900s
1910s
1920s
1930s
400 Block
415 Cooper Street
417 Cooper Street
Adult
Automobiles
Burlington County
Death
Horses
Injuries
Investment
Livery Stable
Male
Widowers
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
People
Description
An account of the resource
Residents of Cooper Street
Person
An individual.
Biographical Text
While a widow heading a household at 415 Cooper Street, Jerusha Browning was far from alone. By marriage, she was a member of the prominent Browning family of South Jersey, whose ranks included the former New Jersey Attorney General Abraham Browning (1808-89). Her husband, Lawrence, had 17 siblings born from his father's two marriages. While living on Cooper Street for more than two decades after the death of her husband, Jerusha had a vast nearby network of relations by marriage or by lineage, including the Doughtons and Hollinsheads next door (413 Cooper), the Hinchmans (417), and other Browning households across the street (414) and in the 500 and 600 blocks.<br /><br />Jerusha apparently rented the three-story brick row house from its original owners, who relocated to Philadelphia but retained title until the 1880s. We cannot know why she made this choice, given that she and her son, Abraham, had inherited considerable property after her husband's death in 1858. If the $12,000 in inherited real estate lay in the South Jersey countryside, where the Brownings were extensive land holders, she may have opted for the proximity to neighbors or the potential to support the household by taking in boarders. In 1860, the residents at 415 Cooper Street included Jerusha, then age 60, Abraham, 26, another son, George, 22, daughter Margaret H., 30, and a servant, Margaret Welsh, 20.<br /><br />During the 1860s and 1870s, various other Browning relatives lived with Jerusha's family for short periods of time. They also continued to employ servants, including Lydia Pernell, who was African American, in 1874. Over time, however, Jerusha and her daughter Margaret began to accept boarders in their home. This began in a genteel manner by 1876, when Jerusha was 76 and her daughter 46, and their boarders included the English-born architect <a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/items/show/47" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Arthur Truscott</a> and his two brothers in the insurance business, James and Millwood. They would have been low-risk boarders, given that they were nephews of an insurance man already established in Camden. <br /><br />Of the three Truscott brothers, the architect remained with the Brownings the longest, for at least twelve years between 1876 and 1888. During this period, he established his architecture practice in Philadelphia and designed the New Jersey Safe Deposit & Trust Company building at Third and Market Streets in Camden (1887). Later he served as a supervising architect during construction of the Camden High School built on Park Boulevard 1916-18. His firm Baily and Truscott also contributed new buildings to Cooper Street with the Chateauesque trio of houses at 538-42 Cooper Street (c. 1892)--later retained as facades for the LEAP Academy Charter School--and the Colonial Revival house at 514 Cooper (1903). <br /><br />After Jerusha Browning died in 1884, Margaret continued to operate the boarding house and to advertise it actively in Camden newspapers. She offered rooms for boarders on the second and third floor, in some cases connecting rooms that could be rented together. She remained in the home and in the boarding house business into her 70s. The Browning family association with 415 Cooper Street ended with the turn of the twentieth century, with Margaret H. Browning's death in 1901.
Sources
Browning Family Trees, Camden and Philadelphia City Directories, New Jersey State Census 1885-1895, and U.S. Census 1860-1910 (Ancestry.com).<br />Camden and Philadelphia Newspapers (Newspapers.com)<br /><a href="https://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/ar_display.cfm/21581" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Truscott, Arthur (1858-1938)</a>, <em>Philadelphia Buildings and Architects</em>, Athenaeum of Philadelphia.
Research by
Charlene Mires, Lucy Davis, and Sheri Ezekiel
Posted by
Charlene Mires
Time period on Cooper Street
1860 or earlier to 1884; daughter until 1901.
Location(s) - Cooper Street
415 Cooper Street
Occupation
Boarding house operator
Birth Date
September 22, 1800
Birthplace
New Jersey
Death Date
November 19, 1884
Associated Individuals
Lawrence Browning, husband
Margaret Browning, daughter
Abraham Browning, son
George Browning, son
Margaret Welsh, servant
Abraham Browning, NJ Attorney General, husband's nephew
Lydia Pernell, servant (African American)
Thomas Stiles, clerk, boarder
Arthur Truscott, architect, boarder
James Truscott, insurance, boarder
Millwood Truscott, insurance, boarder
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Browning, Jerusha
Description
An account of the resource
A member of the prominent Browning family, after the death of her husband Jerusha Browning took in boarders at 415 Cooper Street.
1860s
1870s
1880s
1890s
400 Block
415 Cooper Street
Adult
Architects
Boarding House
Boarding House Operator
Extended Family
Female
Insurance
Widows
-
https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/files/original/6962da4a6cae5a9775811c8fbef23c82.jpg
d1dbcb973c038eafeb181860033c15a3
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
People
Description
An account of the resource
Residents of Cooper Street
Person
An individual.
Biographical Text
In 1933, Helen Waters opened a beauty shop on the second floor of 421 Cooper Street. She vigorously promoted her business with display advertising and flattering promotional articles in the Camden newspapers, encouraging the women of Camden to come to her for the latest in hairstyling and cosmetics.
By the time Helen opened her shop at 421 Cooper, she had been widowed and her work as a beautician supported two daughters. The 1930 Census found her at age 30 living at the Harding Villa Apartments on Federal Street while her daughters Patricia and Dorothy, then aged 9 and 10, lived with her parents Daniel and Lida Chester elsewhere in Camden. Helen, who had an eighth-grade education, worked as a beautician for Binder's Beauty Shop in Philadelphia before opening her own establishment at 421 Cooper Street, where she and her daughters also came to live. In 1938, Waters added cosmetics and facials to her business. Her daughters both graduated from high school, including at least one year at Mount St. Mary's Academy run by the Sisters of Mercy in Plainfield, New Jersey. In 1940, living with their mother at 421 Cooper, Dorothy worked as a typist and Patricia as a telephone operator. Patricia actively promoted a women's basketball league in Camden for former high school players.
The 421 Cooper Street building, originally a Greek Revival row house, had been renovated into an office building with Mission Revival embellishments. Other businesses and organizations, including the Camden County Real Estate Board and the Camden County Democratic Party, had offices in the building while Helen operated the shop and lived upstairs. In 1945, after both of her daughters had married, Helen bought the building but retained ownership only until 1947. When she put 421 Cooper Street up for sale, it offered an office suite on the first floor, additional office space on the second floor, "plus three nicely planned apartments with modern tile baths." Helen continued to operate her beauty salon in the building until at least 1950, but after its sale she moved behind it to 426 Lawrence Street.
(Illustration: Advertisement, Camden Morning Post, October 6, 1933.)
Time period on Cooper Street
1933-1947
Location(s) - Cooper Street
421 Cooper Street
Location(s) - Other
Harding Villa Apartments, Federal Street
Binder's Beauty Shop, Philadelphia
426 Lawrence Street
Occupation
Beautician
Birth Date
c. 1900
Birthplace
New Jersey (likely Cape May, listed there at 5 months old in 1900 U.S. Census)
Death Date
Unknown (after 1950)
Associated Individuals
Daniel and Lida Chester (parents)
Joseph Waters (husband)
Dorothy Waters (daughter, married Edwin J. Schmidt Jr. of Oaklyn, N.J., in 1940)
Patricia Waters (daughter, married John Tesik of Hazleton, Pa., warrant officer in U.S. Navy, in 1945)
Sources
Camden City Directories, 1930-1947 (Ancestry.com)
Camden Newspapers, 1930-1950 (Newspapers.com)
U.S. Census, 1930-1940 (Ancestry.com)
Research by
Charlene Mires and Kaya Durkee
Posted by
Charlene Mires
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Waters, Helen
Description
An account of the resource
Helen Waters, a widow, supported her family by operating a beauty salon on the second floor of 421 Cooper Street from the 1930s to at least 1950.
1930s
1940s
400 Block
421 Cooper Street
426 Lawrence Street
Adult
Beauticians
Cape May
Cosmetics
Female
Philadelphia
Widows
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
People
Description
An account of the resource
Residents of Cooper Street
Person
An individual.
Biographical Text
John Hanmore and his wife, Eleanor, together with two adult daughters and two grandchildren, were among the first residents of new Cooper Street row houses built between Front Street and Delaware Avenue in 1883. They moved to 65 Cooper Street in Camden from a middle-class, managerial neighborhood of Philadelphia, demonstrating the appeal of Camden as a commuter suburb for the larger city across the Delaware River.
The Hanmores' new home was arguably the most desirable of the newly built, three-story homes, standing on the corner of Front and Cooper immediately west of the open square of the Cooper family mansion (later Johnson Park). The Hanmores filled their new home with walnut, oak, and mahogany furniture, installed window boxes for flowers, and added bay windows to the side of their row house that faced the square. One of the adult daughters, Elizabeth Hanmore, offered art lessons for schoolgirls. For John Hanmore, commuting from Camden to his work as a Philadelphia manufacturer of boiler and pipe coverings was likely easier and shorter than before—across the ferry to his business location on Delaware Avenue instead of a streetcar ride of more than 20 blocks from his earlier home at 2323 Green Street in Philadelphia.
The family’s presence on Cooper Street proved to be a short one, however, because of John Hanmore’s sudden and unexpected death from a heart attack in 1885. The Camden County Courier described his last moments with dramatic flair: "The deceased had been out riding with his daughter on the evening of his death, and returned about eight o'clock, sat down to the supper table with the rest of his family in apparently good spirits. He was just in the act of handing a cup to his little [grand]daughter when suddenly he fell from his chair to the floor. The members of the family came to his assistance, and raised him up, but life was extinct. Death was caused by paralysis of the heart, induced by consumption."
The family remained at 65 Cooper Street for three years longer, but thereafter the property served as a boarding house until its demolition to allow for the 1913 construction of a new office building headquarters for the Victor Talking Machine Company.
Time period on Cooper Street
c. 1883-1885
Location(s) - Cooper Street
65 Cooper Street
Location(s) - Other
2323 Green Street, Philadelphia (previous address)
7 S. Delaware Avenue (business address)
Occupation
Manufacturer of felt coverings for pipes and boilers
Birth Date
c. 1825
Birthplace
Newburgh, New York
Death Date
April 4, 1885
Associated Individuals
Eleanor Hanmore (wife)
Elizabeth Hanmore (daughter)
Mary Gerard (daughter)
May / Marie Gerard (granddaughter)
Roy Gerard (grandson)
Sources
Camden and Philadelphia City Directories (Ancestry.com)
New Jersey and U.S. Censuses (Ancestry.com)
Death of John Hanmore reported in Camden County Courier, August 7, 1885; legal notice for construction of bay windows published in Camden Courier-Post, March 31, 1885; art lessons advertised in Courier-Post on various dates in 1884 and 1885; public sale of household contents advertised in Courier-Post, June 6, 1888.
Research by
Charlene Mires
Posted by
Charlene Mires
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Hanmore, John
Description
An account of the resource
John Hanmore, a Philadelphia manufacturer, moved his family to a new home on Cooper Street during the 1880s. His death changed the family's fortunes.
00 Block
1880s
65 Cooper Street
Adult
Death
Interiors
Male
Manufacturers
Philadelphia
Renovations