1
10
4
-
https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/files/original/7dc1b16dc1b0c4bce1ef2e640276b543.jpg
e37d1e248475778690ee7e30374e3adf
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
Buildings
Description
An account of the resource
Houses and other structures on Cooper Street in Camden, N.J.
Place
Residence, business, or other entity.
Significance
422 Lawrence Street forms part of a row of nineteenth-century, working-class houses that originated as rental properties erected by owners of grander homes facing Cooper Street. The row was included in the Cooper Street Historic District’s nomination to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989 to provide a “comprehensive view of Cooper Street’s social history" and “a clear view of the economic and social dichotomy that has continued to typify Camden." 422 Lawrence Street is notable for its connections with many of the waves of migration and immigration that formed Camden's diverse population.
Date of construction
c. early 1850s
History
At the back of three Cooper Street-facing properties (<a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/items/show/70" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">413</a> through <a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/items/show/48" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">417</a>), four two-story houses were added facing Lawrence Street during the late 1840s and early 1850s. The collective development of seven residences stood on land purchased in 1845 and 1846 by <a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/items/show/54" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Hannah Atwood</a>, who lived at various times in one of the Cooper Street homes or in Philadelphia. When rented to others, the houses on Cooper and Lawrence Streets provided a steady income while Hannah’s husband, <a href="https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/digitool%3A78798" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jesse Atwood</a>, pursued a career as a traveling portrait artist. He was best known for an 1847 <a href="https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_1914.7">portrait of General Zachary Taylor</a>, the Mexican-American War hero who later became president of the United States.<br /><br /><strong>422 Lawrence Street</strong><strong> <br /></strong>
<p>The two-story, four-room brick house at 422 Lawrence Street likely dates to the early 1850s, when other similar houses are known to have been built in the same row. The absence of house numbering limits the identification of tenants by address prior to 1861, but city directories documented people living in this block of Lawrence Street beginning in 1854. The earliest tenant of 422 Lawrence Street who can be identified from public records was Charles Storm, a hat finisher, who rented the house in 1860-61. Storm, 42 years old in 1860, was a white man born in New York who headed a household of six people at this address: his wife, Ann, a white woman also 42 years old, who was born in Philadelphia, and four children ranging in age from 2 to 22. The oldest daughter, Catharine, worked as a dressmaker.</p>
<p>By 1862, a veteran of the Civil War headed the family who rented 422 Lawrence Street. Montraville Williams served as a drum major with the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-battle-units-detail.htm?battleUnitCode=UNJ0003RI01" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Third New Jersey Volunteer Infantry</a>. Born in Massachusetts in 1832, Williams was educated at the private, nonsectarian Leicester Academy and worked as a bootmaker before relocating to Camden in the mid-1850s. While working as a cordwainer (shoemaker), in 1855 he married Pennsylvania-born Fanny Riley in Camden’s Third Street Methodist Episcopal Church. By the time of the 1860 Census, they lived in Camden and their family had grown to include three daughters, the oldest 11 years old (apparently born to one of the parents prior to their marriage) and two younger girls ages 1 and 3.</p>
<p>By the time he went off to war, Montraville Williams identified his occupation as musician, and his military role as a principal musician meant that he trained drummers who beat cadences for troops in the field. During his enlistment from May 1861 until October 1862, his unit participated in the defense of Washington, D.C., and advanced into Virginia and Maryland with the Army of the Potomac. Williams mustered out of service following the Battle of Antietam with an unspecified disability. At home, meanwhile, Fanny fought battles of her own. She dealt with the death of their 2-year-old daughter Ella, who contracted smallpox and died in November 1861. Sometime within the next year, she and her surviving girls moved into the 422 Lawrence Street house, and she gave birth to another daughter there in October 1862, around the same time her husband returned from the war.</p>
<p>Disruptions and losses continued for the Williams family during the next six to seven years at the Lawrence Street address. In 1863 another of their daughters, six-year-old Ida, died of scarlet fever while on a visit to her father’s hometown in Massachusetts. By 1869, Montraville apparently left the family and Camden. Fanny appeared alone at 422 Lawrence Street in the Camden city directory in 1869, an indication of the absence of a male head of household. Thereafter, she moved to other addresses in Camden as she sought to support herself and her daughters as a tailoress and music teacher. She struggled in later life, including the public embarrassment of an eviction for nonpayment of rent that was reported in two Camden newspapers in 1888. Montraville, meanwhile, moved west. He may have lived in Chicago for a time, and he was later rumored to be in California. He died in Pueblo, Colorado, in 1905. That year, his long-estranged wife filed for a widow’s pension based upon her husband’s service during the Civil War.</p>
<p><strong>Migrants to Camden: From Europe, the South, the Midwest, and Puerto Rico</strong></p>
<p>Industrialization and immigration to Camden are evident in the next series of tenants at 422 Lawrence Street. By 1870 a miller named Joseph Webster headed a household of six people, including two grown daughters who worked in a shoe factory. By 1880, an immigrant from Germany, Charles Kemmick, worked as a gardener and headed a family of four including his wife Caroline, whose parents were German immigrants, a 4-year-old son, and infant daughter. Occupations represented among the often-changing tenants of 422 Lawrence Street during this period included laborers, shoe cutters, drivers, bookkeepers, and a clerk.</p>
<p>Toward the end of the nineteenth century, 422 Lawrence Street had Black tenants for the first time – among the few Black residents at this or any other house in the Lawrence Street row. Records may not account for the full extent of these African American households, but they document the presence in 1896 of Martha Woolford, a Black widow who had recently been employed as a domestic at nearby <a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/items/show/77" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">407 Cooper Street</a>. After a short tenancy by a white family, the next two renters between 1899 and 1903 were Black food service workers. John and Addie Davis, a married couple in their late twenties, had both been born in Virginia and migrated by 1894 to Philadelphia. By 1899 they were in Camden and renting the house at 422 Lawrence Street. John Davis worked as a baker. The next tenant, a caterer, had been a lodger with another Black family in Camden prior to moving to Lawrence Street with one young son. At their previous address in 1900, Lena Duvall had been recorded as 40 years old, born in Delaware, and her son Leo was then three years old. The Census takers did not find Lena’s husband of eight years at home, although he apparently lived at least intermittently with his family in both locations. In 1901, he was accused of bigamy in Philadelphia after marrying another woman, and Lena crossed the river to present documentation of her marriage in court. She remained on Lawrence Street until 1903.</p>
<p>The fluidity of Camden’s population as industry expanded on the city’s waterfront is reflected by the tenants at 422 Lawrence Street by 1910, when a packer working at the <a href="https://ethw.org/Victor_Talking_Machine_Company" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Victor Talking Machine Company</a> headed the family at this address. Charles L. Rhodes, a white man 54 years old, had been born in New York. His wife of seventeen years, 51-year-old Marietta, had been born in Georgia. They had one son, Arthur, who was sixteen years old in 1910 and attending school. The expansion of shipbuilding on the Delaware River also brought tenants to 422 Lawrence Street: throughout the 1920s, it became home to a family headed by a riveter, Albert Adams, a white man who was born in Ohio to parents who had immigrated from France and Germany. Forty years old in 1920, his household included his wife, Mabel, who was five years younger, also born in Ohio but to parents who had both been born in Virginia. Mabel’s mother and brother lived with the couple; her brother also worked in a shipyard on the Delaware. While Mabel’s brother moved on at some time during the 1920s, the rest of the family stayed on Lawrence Street through at least 1930.</p>
<p>The house at 422 Lawrence Street remained a rental property through the Great Depression, although the identities of tenants are scarce because Camden did not publish city directories between 1931 and 1940. In 1940, the tenants included Charles Smith, a white man who worked as a church janitor, and his wife, a presser in a factory. Thereafter, however, the occupants of the house reflected the <a href="https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/puerto-rican-migration/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">rising presence of Puerto Ricans</a> in Camden. From 1943 until at least 1950, Puerto-Rican born Santos and Lucy Martinez headed a family of six at this address; at some point, they also purchased the home. The 1950 Census recorded Santos as 47 years old, white, and working as an electrician in a shipyard; Lucy, ten years younger than her husband, also white, operated a sewing machine in a dress factory. Their children, all of whom had been born in Puerto Rico, included four at home ranging in age from 15 to 21, in addition to an oldest son attending William Penn College in Iowa. Margarita, the oldest of their offspring at home, worked as a mender in a hosiery mill, and a nineteen-year-old son was a pin boy in a bowling alley. Another son, Nestor, turned eighteen in 1950, enlisted in the Army, and departed that year for basic training at Parris Island, South Carolina.</p>
<p>The history of 422 Lawrence Street next appears in the public record in the 1970s, when periodic missed tax payments put the property at risk of sheriff’s sale. In 1978, Santos and Lucy Martinez, who by then lived in suburban Woodlynne, sold the house Eric and Ellen Eifert, who then lived at 418 Lawrence Street. The Eiferts, who later purchased <a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/items/show/91" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">418</a> and <a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/items/show/92" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">420</a> Lawrence Street as well, sold all three properties to Rutgers University in 2007.</p>
Associated Individuals
For a list of known residents of 422 Lawrence Street, link to the <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oOkUYd5Qa7w5M0Ga0vWhq9evz980wMElF8jhPuw3GHM/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Lawrence Street Database</a>. For earlier residents of the block (prior to house numbering), see <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cI-_IVB-ei-no50oQzzTn36wz6gTgtHiIXCxq8_s9Rw/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Lawrence Street by Block, 1854-1860</a>.
Sources
Camden and Philadelphia City Directories.<br /> Camden and Philadelphia Newspapers.<br /> Camden County Deeds.<br /> Sanborn Insurance Maps, 1885-1950.<br /> U.S. and New Jersey Census, 1870-1950.<br /><br /><strong>Note on sources</strong>: When documented for the National Register of Historic Places, the Lawrence Street rowhouses were thought to have been occupied by servants for the homeowners on Cooper Street. One woman employed as a domestic servant on Cooper Street lived at 422 Lawrence Street; for other tenants, this research updates and corrects the record.
Research by
Charlene Mires and Kaya Durkee
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
422 Lawrence Street
Description
An account of the resource
Nineteenth-century working-class rental property, Cooper Street Historic District.
1850s
1860s
1870s
1880s
1890s
1900s
1910s
1920s
1930s
1940s
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s
2020s
422 Lawrence Street
African Americans
Artists
Bakers
Bigamy
Black Migration
Bookkeepers
Caterers
Childhood
Children
Civil War
Clerks
Death
Disability
Drivers
Electricians
Factory Workers
France
Gardeners
Georgia
Germany
Immigrants
Immigration
Investment
Janitor
Laborers
Lawrence Street
Massachusetts
Millers
Musicians
Ohio
Philadelphia
Puerto Ricans
Rutgers-Camden
Scarlet Fever
Servants
Shipyard Workers
Shoemakers
Smallpox
Veterans
Victor Talking Machine Company
Virginia
Widows
-
https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/files/original/9279210ee7027c9b10f6f92ba48f9376.jpg
1c483d5b832d770366c2aacb798371c5
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
Buildings
Description
An account of the resource
Houses and other structures on Cooper Street in Camden, N.J.
Place
Residence, business, or other entity.
Significance
420 Lawrence Street forms part of a row of nineteenth-century, working-class houses that originated as rental properties erected by owners of grander homes facing Cooper Street. The row was included in the Cooper Street Historic District’s nomination to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989 to provide a “comprehensive view of Cooper Street’s social history" and “a clear view of the economic and social dichotomy that has continued to typify Camden.”
Date of construction
c. early 1850s
History
At the back of three Cooper Street-facing properties (<a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/items/show/70" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">413</a> through <a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/items/show/48" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">417</a>), four two-story houses were added facing Lawrence Street during the late 1840s and early 1850s. The collective development of seven residences stood on land purchased in 1845 and 1846 by <a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/items/show/54" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Hannah Atwood</a>, who lived at various times in one of the Cooper Street homes or in Philadelphia. When rented to others, the houses on Cooper and Lawrence Streets provided a steady income while Hannah’s husband, <a href="https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/digitool%3A78798" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jesse Atwood</a>, pursued a career as a traveling portrait artist. He was best known for an 1847 <a href="https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_1914.7">portrait of General Zachary Taylor</a>, the Mexican-American War hero who later became president of the United States.<br /><br /><strong>420 Lawrence Street<br /></strong><br />The two-story, four-room brick house at 420 Lawrence Street likely dates to the early 1850s, when other similar houses are known to have been built in the same row. The absence of house numbering prevents identifying tenants by address prior to 1861, but city directories documented people living in this block of Lawrence Street beginning in 1854. Directories during the 1860s identify skilled tradespeople among the occupants of 420 Lawrence Street, including a butcher and a glazier (glass fitter).
<p>Between 1865 and 1870, a butcher’s family lived at 420 Lawrence Street. The butcher, Peter C. Cliver, was a white man born in New Jersey, 53 years old in 1870. His household that year included at least six other people: his wife, Hannah, a white woman, 49 years old; four children ranging in age from 13 to 22 years of age; and an unrelated 25-year-old man who may have been a boarder. The Clivers’ oldest son worked as a box maker, and a 16-year-old son worked as a store clerk. For two years, 1869-70, city directories also list 420 Lawrence Street as the residence of Elizabeth A. Mood, a widow and dressmaker. If that listing is correct, she may have been the next tenant after the Clivers or co-inhabited the house with one or more of them. (The Census of 1870 found her at a different location, on Market Street.) Mood headed an extended family of five people. A white woman 46 years old, born in New Jersey, Mood lived with her three children, two of whom were old enough to contribute to the family economy: William, 18 years old, was an apprentice carpenter, and Lewis, 15, worked as a clerk in a grocery store. The household also included Mood’s 11-year-old daughter, Annie, and 63-year-old Ann Penn, likely Mood’s mother.</p>
<p>Longer-term tenants moved into 420 Lawrence Street by 1877. A laborer, John Stow, a white man in his late 30s, arrived that year with his wife, Sarah, and daughter, Mary; they occupied the home until 1890. The 1880 Census recorded that the parents could not write (but apparently could read). Their daughter was attending school and had a “wounded hip,” the Census recorded. The next year, 1881, 11-year-old Mary’s life began to diverge from her parents when she was baptized at <a href="https://stpaulschurchcamden.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. Paul’s Episcopal Church</a> on Market Street under the sponsorship of another adult. By 1885, Mary lived with another family in Stockton Township, possibly as a domestic servant. Her parents remained at 420 Lawrence Street until John Stow’s death in 1890, at the age of 51, from causes not publicly reported. A succession of other tenants followed during the 1890s, including laborers, a gardener, a bricklayer, a packer, a coachman, and a washerwoman. In 1896, hostler Herbert Batey and his wife, Emma, suffered the death of their infant son Horace while living at 420 Lawrence Street.</p>
<p>At the turn of the twentieth century, a large family headed by German immigrants moved into the small house. William Heider, a 37-year-old baker, had immigrated to the United States in in 1878; his wife, 36-year-old Lena, came later, in 1883. When recorded in the Census of 1900, they had been married fourteen years and had seven children ranging in age from 3 months to 13 years, two of them twin daughters. Two other children had not survived. The Heiders lived at 420 Lawrence Street from 1900 until 1903, when the house was put up for sale together with the adjoining <a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/items/show/91" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">418 Lawrence Street</a>. The agent advertised that the houses “will show a good investment, either for the man who is seeking a home or investment, and are real bargains.” The house remained a rental property, occupied by 1905 by a household headed by a 48-year-old Irish immigrant, a widow named Nora Healey (or Haley). Her two daughters, ages 17 and 22, worked in lace making and later in domestic service, and a 15-year-old son worked in farming.</p>
<p>In the early decades of the twentieth century, tenants at 420 Lawrence Street included a succession of married couples in their 20s and 30s, with occupations including salesman, shoemaker, chef, timekeeper, and laborer. Another large family moved into the home in 1920, headed by shipyard worker Thomas A. Montgomery, a white man 45 years old. He and his wife, Sadie, were both born in Pennsylvania but had lived in New Jersey for most of their married life. By 1920, their two oldest sons, ages 20 and 17, worked as truck drivers for a laundry; an 8-year-old daughter was attending school. Two younger children, ages 1 and 4, completed the family of seven. They remained at 420 Lawrence Street for seven years, followed by another household headed by a shipyard worker, a rigger named Lawrence Lauinger and his wife, Helen.</p>
<p>Records of tenants during the Great Depression are sparse because city directories were not published in Camden between 1931 and 1940. The decade opened with a 45-year-old white woman, Margaret Peterson, who was divorced, renting the home for herself and her 18-year old son, who operated machines at a laundry. By 1940, Earl Nelson, a 36-year-old immigrant from Norway who worked as a railroad machinist, shared the home with a family of lodgers. His lodgers were a family of five headed by Paul E. Rube, an immigrant from Sweden, 54 years old, who worked as a car cleaner; with his wife, Catherine (who was born in Pennsylvania), he had three children ranging in age from 1 to 8. The lodgers also included a 12-year-old boy, Joseph Armstrong, whose age suggests he may have been Catherine Rube’s son from a previous marriage.</p>
<p>By 1942, the house was vacant and put up for sale along with adjacent 418 and 422 Lawrence Streets. Under new ownership, during World War II the sequence of next tenants included a wounded Army private and a welder. Another large family moved into the home in 1950, headed by a 45-year-old white woman, Mary Brennan, who told Census takers she was separated from her husband. She shared the house with four sons ranging in age from 16 to 20, her 20-year-old daughter, and a 4-year-old granddaughter.</p>
<p>Several tenants later, by 1957 the house at 420 Lawrence Street had been conveyed to an investment company, and a woman who rented the house next door at <a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/items/show/91" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">418 Lawrence</a> took the opportunity to buy both properties. Alice Pharo, a white woman, had rented 418 Lawrence since 1950 and chose to stay despite a 1952 incident of a man breaking through the window of her kitchen. Divorced and living independently, Pharo served as secretary of the Burlington-Camden-Gloucester Society for Crippled Children and Adults. She rented out 420 Lawrence Street to tenants while living at 418 Lawrence until her death in 1977.</p>
<p>The next owners, Eric and Ellen Eifert, acquired both <a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/items/show/91" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">418</a> and 420 Lawrence Street from Alice Pharo’s estate in 1984. In 2007, the Eiferts sold 418, 420, and <a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/items/show/93" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">422 Lawrence Street</a> to Rutgers University.</p>
Associated Individuals
For a list of known residents of 420 Lawrence Street, link to the <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oOkUYd5Qa7w5M0Ga0vWhq9evz980wMElF8jhPuw3GHM/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Lawrence Street Database</a>. For earlier residents of the block (prior to house numbering), see <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cI-_IVB-ei-no50oQzzTn36wz6gTgtHiIXCxq8_s9Rw/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Lawrence Street by Block, 1854-1860</a>.
Sources
Camden and Philadelphia City Directories.<br /> Camden and Philadelphia Newspapers.<br /> Camden County Deeds.<br /> Sanborn Insurance Maps, 1885-1950.<br /> U.S. and New Jersey Census, 1870-1950.<br /><br /><strong>Note on sources</strong>: When documented for the National Register of Historic Places, the Lawrence Street rowhouses were thought to have been occupied by servants for the homeowners on Cooper Street. This research updates and corrects the record.
Research by
Charlene Mires and Kaya Durkee
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
420 Lawrence Street
Description
An account of the resource
Nineteenth-century working-class rental property, Cooper Street Historic District.
1850s
1860s
1870s
1880s
1890s
1900s
1910s
1920s
1930s
1940s
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s
2020s
420 Lawrence Street
Artists
Butchers
Carpenters
Childhood
Children
Clerks
Dressmakers
Extended Family
Farmers
Germany
Glaziers
Immigrants
Immigration
Infant Mortality
Injuries
Investment
Ireland
Laborers
Laundries
Lawrence Street
Lodgers
Norway
Rutgers-Camden
Salesmen
Secretaries
Shipyard Workers
Shoemakers
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Sweden
Veterans
Widows
World War II
-
https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/files/original/59ba02cfefc7e9519bfa4fb3ff75e9dd.jpg
c39b0193f6dbec81019fe0c9216d4e67
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
Buildings
Description
An account of the resource
Houses and other structures on Cooper Street in Camden, N.J.
Place
Residence, business, or other entity.
Illustrations
Photograph by Jacob Lechner
Significance
303 Cooper Street is a contributing structure of the Cooper Street Historic District, listed on the New Jersey and National Register of Historic Places. A 1980 survey of historic structures on Cooper Street described the building as “the best example of high-school, pre-Civil War architecture to be found in Camden.” It therefore supports the historic district’s designation on the basis of architectural merit as well as its representation of broad patterns of American history. Through its owners and occupants, this house tells the story of Camden’s development in manufacturing, finance, and medicine, and its later challenges as a post-industrial city. Purchased by Rutgers University in 2001, it serves as an office building for the <a href="https://camden.rutgers.edu/discover-camden/leadership/office-of-chancellor" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Rutgers-Camden Chancellor</a> and other senior administrators.
Architectural style
Renaissance Revival
Date of construction
1853
History
<p>Prior to the 1850s, the undeveloped land in the vicinity of Third and Cooper Streets, stretching northward to Pearl Street, was known as “Carman’s Field.” William Carman, a prosperous and prominent operator of a sawmill and lumber yard on the Camden waterfront, controlled more than 10 acres that had descended through the Cooper family to Carman’s wife, Mary Ann Cooper, who died in 1841. The house on the northeast corner of Third and Cooper Streets, later numbered 303, is a product of the sale, division, and development of the Carman land in 1852.</p>
<p>While still owned by Carman, the later location of 303 Cooper Street had a two-story wood frame house occupied during the 1840s by a maker of water pumps, Joseph Vautier, the son of a <a href="https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/france-and-the-french/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">French immigrant</a> to Philadelphia. Vautier was remembered decades later for the pump that stood in front of his house, which was regarded as a source of excellent water during the cholera epidemic of 1849.</p>
<p>Development of the Carman property displaced Vautier, who moved his family from Third and Cooper to another house to the west beyond Seventh Street. In 1852, a broker named Solomon Stimson acquired the double-width lot at Third and Cooper from a group of investors who had acquired the entire Carman field. In June 1853, the Philadelphia <em>Public Ledger</em> observed him “erecting a large and very tastily arranged dwelling on Cooper Street, which will be an ornament to that rapidly improving section of the city.” Stimson covered the old well with flagstones and ran the water through pipes to serve the new home.</p>
<p><strong>Wealth and Status</strong></p>
<p>Solomon Stimson’s house was double the width of the rowhouses recently constructed in the rest of the block, and it reached beyond them in architectural style with features such as its brownstone foundation and hooded windows. It was similar in size but also fancier than the home recently completed in the 400 block of Cooper Street for George W. Carpenter (<a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/items/show/74" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">401-03 Cooper Street</a>), a lumber merchant who later entered into a manufacturing partnership with Stimson.</p>
<p>The source of Stimson’s wealth and his reasons for being in Camden are unclear. He came from a rural area of Saratoga County, New York, north of Albany, but by 1850 was in Camden, 30 years old, and heading a household that included his wife Flora (28 years old, also born in New York); a one-year-old son, James; his younger brother John, 25 years old; and two domestic servants who were Irish immigrants, Ann and Bridget McLeod. The Stimson brothers both reported their occupations as “brokers,” but brokers of what? It’s possible that their connections with Camden were formed through the lumber industry, given Solomon Stimson’s association with George Carpenter, his purchase of part of the Carman land, and his later return to upstate New York, a timber region.</p>
<p>By 1860, Stimson and Carpenter were in business together as Stimson and Carpenter, manufacturers of tape and webbing at Front and Pearl Streets. (They also both served as trustees of the <a href="http://www.dvrbs.com/camden-religion/camdennj-church-2ndpresbyterian.htm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Second Presbyterian Church</a>, newly founded at Fourth and Benson Streets.) A glimpse of the Stimson family’s material possessions emerged from a burglary in 1864, which netted “about $800 worth of plate, jewelry, ornaments &c.,” the <em>Camden Democrat</em> reported. In 1866, the Internal Revenue Service taxed Stimson on possessions that included a carriage, two gold watches, and a piano.</p>
<p>The Stimson family’s reasons for leaving Camden in 1867 are as unclear as their arrival. They returned to Saratoga County, New York, where Solomon Stimson listed his occupation as “lumber.”</p>
<p><strong>A Judge, Eventually</strong></p>
<p>The next owner of 303 Cooper Street, Isaiah Woolston, had just been elected to the Camden County Board of Chosen Freeholders when he purchased the house from Solomon Stimson. Woolston, 50 years old, had a checkered career in and out of businesses that included lumber, poultry, and wholesale liquor. It was in the wholesale liquor business in Philadelphia that “he rapidly accumulated capital,” according to his later obituary in the Camden<em> Morning Post. </em>In Camden, he accumulated political capital as well, holding public office and serving as a director for enterprises that included the <a href="https://sjfilmoffice.com/location/camden-safe-deposit-trust-company/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Camden Safe Deposit and Trust Co.</a> and the <a href="https://delawareriverheritagetrail.org/2021/06/24/the-camden-amboy-railroad/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Camden and Amboy Railroad</a>. He was a founder of <a href="http://www.dvrbs.com/camden-religion/camdennj-church-TrinityBaptist.htm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Trinity Baptist Church</a>.</p>
<p>Woolston and his family occupied 303 Cooper Street for the next three decades, including a ten-year period when he advanced his political career to the position of lay judge of the Court of Common Pleas. Woolston, who had been born in the vicinity of Vincentown, Burlington County, headed a household of four sons with his wife Sarah, originally from Freehold, New Jersey. The family employed Black domestic servants, some of whom are known from Census records: in 1870, Eliza Duncan, 45 years old, who was born in Maryland and unable to read or write; in 1880, Mary E. Hines, 18 years old, also from Maryland and illiterate; and in 1885, Annie Burton, whose age and family history are unknown. A white domestic servant, Laura Dickenson, also came from Maryland and worked in the Woolston home in 1894. Later in the 1890s, the Woolstons advertised a preference for a “German girl for general housework.”</p>
<p>With the benefit of domestic labor for housework, Sarah Woolston engaged in charitable activities. She served on the board of managers for the <a href="https://www.sageth.com/businesses/camden-home-for-friendless-children/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Camden Home for Friendless Children</a>, which had been organized by prominent Camden residents in 1865. Located on Haddon Avenue above Mount Vernon, it was an altruistic endeavor that also revealed prevailing attitudes toward the poor. While providing shelter, health care, and education to “destitute friendless children,” it also sought to place them out with families to learn trades or useful occupations. The home was also segregated, which prompted the creation of a separate institution for Black children, the West Jersey Orphanage for Colored Children, in 1874.</p>
<p>While living at Third and Cooper, Judge Woolston added real estate investment to his variety of business and political activities. In 1878, he purchased a large tract of then-undeveloped land in the vicinity of Fourth and Penn Streets and resold it to a builder. The property had a frontage of 200 feet on Fourth Street, approximately the later site of the <a href="https://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/camden" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Robeson Library of Rutgers-Camden</a>. Houses filled the block until they were demolished in the 1962-64 urban renewal project that created an enlarged campus for Rutgers.</p>
<p>The four Woolston sons, ages 8 to 14 when they moved into 303 Cooper Street, grew to adulthood at this address. One son, Charles, had a condition that Census takers in 1880 recorded as “insane” and “idiotic.” He died in 1887 at age 30, “very suddenly in Trenton of apoplexy,” raising the possibility that he lived in a state facility. Another son, Clarence, became pastor of the East Baptist Church in Philadelphia and developed expertise in children’s Bible study. Harry Woolston went into the coal business in Camden but also embraced the bicycle craze of the 1890s by starting the Woolston Bicycle Enameling Company. Albert Woolston, a clerk during his father’s judgeship, entered the real estate business.</p>
<p>The Woolston family’s ownership of 303 Cooper Street ended with the death of Isaiah Woolston in 1899 and Sarah Woolston in 1900. The family sold the home to a real estate agent, who advertised, “I will sell the handsome residence at the northeast corner of Third and Cooper Streets, at an exceedingly liberal price provided that a contract is made within ten days.”</p>
<p><strong>Banking and Medicine</strong></p>
<p>For the first two decades of the twentieth century, 303 Cooper Street continued to be home to prominent Camden business leaders. The next two owners were both presidents of the <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Central_Trust_Camden_NJ.JPG" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Central Trust Company</a>, a bank founded in 1891 by local businessmen including Abraham Anderson, a canner who had been a partner in the business that later became Campbell Soup. The bank grew quickly to assets of more than $1 million by the time its then-president, Alpheus McCracken, bought the former Woolston home at Third and Cooper Streets.</p>
<p>McCracken rose to business prominence in Camden through the carpentry trade. Born in 1843 in Morris County, New Jersey, McCracken apprenticed as a carpenter by the age of 16. Three years later, he enlisted in the Army and fought for the Union during the Civil War; his unit, the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-battle-units-detail.htm?battleUnitCode=UNJ0031RI" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Thirty-First Infantry Regiment of New Jersey Volunteers</a>, saw action at the <a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/civil-war/battles/chancellorsville" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Battle of Chancellorsville</a>. He moved to Camden from Bordentown, New Jersey, in the 1870s following the death of his first wife, which occurred just one month after the birth of their second son.</p>
<p>Camden’s prominence in the lumber business and railroads proved advantageous for McCracken, as he gained employment as a lumber inspector for the Pennsylvania Railroad’s lines in New Jersey. By the 1880s, he was investing in construction-related businesses, the Richman Fire Escape Company and the Fay Manilla Roofing Company. Although not among the organizers of the new Central Trust Company, he was on its board of directors by 1893 and succeeded Abraham Anderson as president in 1897. Three years later, he moved from North Second Street to 303 Cooper Street, which was closer to the bank at Fourth and Federal.</p>
<p>During their five years in the Cooper Street house, the McCracken family included Alpheus and his second wife, Lillian, a daughter, and two sons. The family also employed Black domestic servants who were born in the South, an indication of the increasing presence of African Americans in Camden at the turn of the twentieth century. In 1900 just before the move to Cooper Street, they employed Mary Hill, a Black woman identified by Census takers only as born in “the South,” who could neither read nor write. In 1905 their household on Cooper Street included a young widow, Rosa Hayden, a 24-year-old Black widow who was born in Virginia, also unable to read or write. Living with her was a 15-year-old Black youth with the same last name, Frederick Hayden, who was attending school.</p>
<p>For reasons not publicly explained, in 1906 the McCrackens moved to Vineland, turning over their house at Third and Cooper to an associate for the nominal sum of $1. The new owner, homeopathic physician Harry H. Grace, was acquainted with Alpheus McCracken through their mutual involvement in the Camden Republican Club (then at 312 Cooper Street) and shared enthusiasm for automobile touring, a new pastime for the wealthy. Grace and his wife, Ellen, established their home and his medical practice at their new address; in 1910, they employed two Black domestic workers, 21-year-old Sadie Hughes and a “house man,” 22-year-old Lorne Flemming (in some records Flemming Green or Lemmond Green), who were both born in Virginia.</p>
<p>During this period, Harry Grace also became involved in management of the Central Trust Company, elected to the board of directors in 1908 and then succeeding McCracken as president of the bank in 1915. Grace’s transition from medicine to banking occurred after his own health scare, which was not publicly identified but necessitated traveling to Frankfurt, Germany, for rest and to “take the celebrated baths in the hope of being restored to his wonted health and vigor,” the Camden <em>Morning Post </em>reported. The journey put Grace and his wife in Europe during the summer of 1914, as the First World War began to unfold following the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand. This apparently cut short the intended treatment of complete rest, as the Graces returned from Europe to Atlantic City, not Camden. Within weeks they traveled again, this time to Rochester, Minnesota, where Grace underwent surgery by one of the renowned Mayo brothers, who soon founded the <a href="https://history.mayoclinic.org/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Mayo Clinic</a>.</p>
<p>A year after the surgery, a celebration at the Union Club in Philadelphia marked Harry H. Grace’s ascendance to the presidency of Central Trust Bank, where Alpheus McCracken remained chairman of the board. By 1917, however, Grace left Camden for Atlantic City, where he continued to work in banking. McCracken resigned as chairman of Central Trust in 1918, citing ill health, and later lived in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.</p>
<p><strong>The Strenuous Life</strong></p>
<p>Unlike many homes on Cooper Street, 303 did not undergo conversion into an office building or apartments during the 1920s, the period of construction of the Delaware River Bridge (later renamed the Benjamin Franklin Bridge). As long as it continued to be owned by physicians, which continued into the 1950s, it remained a family home while also including an office for the doctor. This was the case for Dr. Edward Pechin, who bought the property in 1920 (moving from a house immediately behind it at 300 Penn Street). The household that year included Pechin, then 42 years old; his wife, Anna, 38; and their daughter Dorothy, 13. Like their predecessors at this address, they employed a Black domestic worker, 18-year-old Mary Blackson, who was born in New Jersey to parents born in Delaware. They also employed a white maid, 23-year-old Mary Gleaves, who was born in Maryland.</p>
<p>Pechin, who was born in Philadelphia, had come to Camden as a youth to work in a drug store owned by his brother. While his brother maintained the pharmacy, Pechin proceeded to medical school at Jefferson College in Philadelphia, where he graduated in 1903. During that period he appears to have embraced the “<a href="https://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/roosevelt-strenuous-life-1899-speech-text/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">strenuous life</a>” philosophy espoused in 1899 by Theodore Roosevelt, who implored men to set aside lives of ease and become strong, individually and for the nation. In Camden, this took the form of the Camden Light Infantry, which formed in 1900, with Pechin participating as a lieutenant by 1904. The group devoted itself to military-style training, and members regarded their participation as cultivating not only physical fitness but also, in the words of a captain of the corps, “habits of mind, self-control, and reverence for the law.”</p>
<p>Focusing his practice on internal medicine and treatment of tuberculosis, Pechin became a member of the Board of Managers of the <a href="https://digital.hagley.org/1970200_05385" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Camden Tuberculosis Hospital</a>. Some traces of devotion to an active life continued: in 1911 he sprung to the rescue of a woman who tripped in the path of an approaching freight train; in 1918 he was reported to be close to collapse from overwork while treating patients at Cooper Hospital during the influenza epidemic. Known for tirelessly responding to patients, day or night, he later contracted the flu and pneumonia, which permanently sapped his strength.</p>
<p>It came as a “severe shock,” the Camden <em>Morning Post</em> reported, in 1925 when Pechin contracted spinal meningitis. At age 47, he died several days later despite a dozen of his fellow physicians working in shifts to try to save his life with treatments that included spinal taps and brain surgery. His wife and daughter kept vigil. A year later, they left the house at Third and Cooper and relocated to Haddonfield.</p>
<p><strong>Jewish Home</strong></p>
<p>The next long-term owners of 303 Cooper Street, Dr. Max Ruttenberg and his wife, Anna, came to a neighborhood that had transformed during the 1920s to include a significant Jewish presence. Jewish entrepreneurs were active in renovating 50-year-old rowhouses into apartments during the period of real estate speculation that occurred in anticipation of the Delaware River Bridge. A cluster of Jewish-owned businesses, including a tailor shop, a delicatessen, and an automobile dealership, developed just a block away from Third and Cooper in the 200 block of Penn Street. Although Camden’s Jewish population centered more prominently in other parts of the city, the Ruttenbergs were not the only Jewish family in the vicinity of Cooper Street.</p>
<p>Moving from their previous home on State Street in 1933, the Ruttenbergs were a family of five: Max, who was an ear, nose, and throat specialist, was 42 years old, and Anna was 36. They had been married twelve years and had three children, a son Bertram, 10 years old, and two daughters, 8-year-old Ruth and 4-year-old Serita. Their Jewish heritage was rooted in Russia. Max had been born there and immigrated to the United States with his family in 1900, when he was 8 years old, during a surge of new arrivals from southern and eastern Europe. Anna was the daughter of a Philadelphia rabbi who immigrated from Russia, as did her mother.</p>
<p>In addition to their ties to extended family in both Camden and Philadelphia, the Ruttenbergs participated in networks of Jewish civic, social, and faith activities. Anna, a college graduate and a teacher before her marriage, was one of the organizers of the Camden chapter of Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America; she served as chapter president in 1932. Shortly after moving to Cooper Street, in 1934, Max Ruttenberg was elected president of the Jewish Welfare Society, which raised funds to encourage self-reliance of the poor and to provide free medical and legal advice. The family’s religious life centered on <a href="https://bethelsnj.org/about-beth-el/our-history/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Congregation Beth-El</a>, which had been established in the Parkside neighborhood of Camden during the 1920s. Bertram Ruttenberg had his bar mitzvah there in 1935, followed by a reception at home.</p>
<p>The Ruttenbergs lived at 303 Cooper Street for a little more than two decades, from 1933 until 1955. During this period Max Ruttenberg, who had degrees in dentistry from the University of Pennsylvania and in medicine from Temple University, joined the faculty of the Penn Graduate School of Medicine. The children grew up, attended college, and married. During the Second World War, Bertram Ruttenberg—by then a medical school graduate—served in Guam with the U.S. Army medical corps. Bertram’s sister Ruth in 1945 married a Philadelphia medical student who then served in the Army and later in the Air Force.</p>
<p>Max and Anna Ruttenberg remained at 303 Cooper Street until the doctor retired in the early 1950s. They spent their later years primarily at the Jersey Shore, and their departure from Cooper Street marked the end of its era as a single-family home.</p>
<p><strong>Service to Camden</strong></p>
<p>After the Ruttenbergs moved from Camden, institutional and office uses of 303 Cooper Street reflected the changing social landscape and needs of the city. In 1955, the <a href="https://www.campbellsoupcompany.com/about-us/our-story/campbell-history/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Campbell Soup</a> Fund bought the building and presented it to the Camden County Community Chest and Council, an organization that raised and administered funding for “health, welfare, and character-building agencies and the USO.” The new headquarters was intended as a memorial to <a href="https://www.hbs.edu/leadership/20th-century-leaders/Pages/details.aspx?profile=arthur_c_dorrance" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Arthur C. Dorrance</a>, a president of the Campbell Soup Company and the first president of the Community Chest before his death in 1946. A plaque placed in the building acknowledged his service.</p>
<p>The Community Chest, later known as the United Fund, operated at 303 Cooper for nearly two decades, until moving to 408 Cooper Street in 1972. Its relationships with social service agencies positioned the building to play a role in responding to the city’s needs in the wake of the Camden <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/camden-new-jersey-riots-1969-and-1971/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">riot of 1971</a>. After tensions between police and Camden’s growing Puerto Rican population ignited violence, an ad hoc group of social service leaders met at this location on August 27, 1971, to discuss ways of being more useful to the community and to plan responses to future emergencies. Leading the effort were Angel Perez, director of Community Organization for Puerto Rican Affairs, the Rev. Edward Walsh of Catholic Charities, and Ronald B. Evans, chairman of the Camden chapter of the <a href="https://www.thecongressofracialequality.org/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Congress for Racial Equality</a> (CORE).</p>
<p>The departure of the United Fund in 1972 led to a period of ownership by Edward Teitelman, a psychiatrist and historic architecture enthusiast who also owned the distinctive nineteenth-century home next door (305 Cooper Street) and other buildings on Cooper Street and nearby. During the 1970s and 1980s, the building housed psychiatry practices and a Veterans Vocational Guidance Center (which lost its funding during federal budget cuts in 1980). The address appeared periodically in legal notices for overdue taxes through 1990 and came into the hands of Rutgers University in 2001 through purchase from a trustee for Edward Teitelman. Thereafter it served as an office building for the <a href="https://camden.rutgers.edu/discover-camden/leadership/office-of-chancellor" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Chancellor</a> and other senior administrators of Rutgers University-Camden.</p>
Associated Individuals
For a list of known occupants of 303 Cooper Street, visit the <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15gz3_mGk3FcNl0TPaOZAq6B1CHvOpqRcY7a99xkp_l4/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Cooper Street Residents Database</a> and scroll down to 303.
Sources
<p>Francis Berger, <em>Genealogical and Memorial History of the State of New Jersey </em>(New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1910).<br /> Camden City Directories (Camden County Historical Society, Ancestry.com).<br /> Camden County Property Records.<br /> Camden and Philadelphia Newspapers (Newspapers.com and Genealogy Bank).<br /> U.S. Census, 1850-1950, and New Jersey State Census, 1885-1925 (Ancestry.com).<br /> Register of Officers and Men of New Jersey in the Civil War, 1861-65 (Ancestry.com).<br /> Nathanial B. Sylvester, <em>History of Saratoga County, New York </em>(Philadelphia: Everts & Ensign, 1878).<br /> Priscilla M. and Franklyn M. Thompson, "Central Trust Company," <a href="https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/ed8dd60e-55a4-4520-9013-b419ce02df74/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">National Register of Historic Places</a>.</p>
Research by
Charlene Mires, Scott Hearn, 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
303 Cooper Street
Description
An account of the resource
Contributing structure, Cooper Street Historic District.
1850s
1860s
1870s
1880s
1890s
1900s
1910s
1920s
1930s
1940s
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
300 Block
303 Cooper Street
African Americans
Automobiles
Bala Cynwyd
Banking
Bar Mitzvah
Black Migration
Bordentown
Camden Home for Friendless Children
Camden Light Infantry
Camden Republican Club
Campbell Soup Company
Civil War
Community Chest
Death
Doctors
Hadassah
Immigration
Jersey Shore
Jewish Welfare Society
Jews
Lumber
Manufacturers
Maryland
New York
Puerto Ricans
Riot of 1971
Russia
Rutgers-Camden
Servants
Social Services
Spinal Meningitis
Tuberculosis
United Fund
Veterans
Vineland
World War II
-
https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/files/original/a3a3b6f3194ecfe7f7262f659caaaf9b.jpg
1efe517cfc1070d84e1202f600d99678
https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/files/original/6c2ee2ef0a428df7624427f289f6129e.jpg
86f7e131e28d58792ad78e403829f44f
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
Buildings
Description
An account of the resource
Houses and other structures on Cooper Street in Camden, N.J.
Place
Residence, business, or other entity.
Illustrations
527 Cooper Street in 1890, The Inland Architect and News Record. (Courtesy, Ryerson and Burnham Libraries, the Art Institute of Chicago)
527 Cooper Street in 2019. (Photograph by Jacob Lechner)
Significance
527 Cooper Street is a contributing structure of the Cooper Street Historic District, which is listed on the New Jersey and National Registers of Historic Places. Its designers, <a href="https://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/ar_display.cfm/22158" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Hazlehurst & Huckel</a> of Philadelphia, are named in National Register documentation as among the architects whose work warranted designating the district based on its distinctive architecture. The building also illustrates the district’s significance in representing broad patterns of American history. As stated in the National Register nomination: “The buildings within the district include Camden’s best remaining examples of Federal houses and its most intact examples of nineteenth-century houses as well as important office and bank buildings of more recent vintage. These buildings demonstrate the street’s change from residential and professional to commercial.” During the 1920s, the building housed offices of real estate agents and a builder who played important roles in that transition. The building also has a notable history associated with individuals prominent in industry and government, their families, and domestic workers whose histories reflect patterns of immigration and African American migration.
Architectural style
Queen Anne. Documentation prepared in 1980 by J.P. Graham of the Division of Planning, City of Camden, stated: “Although altered the house preserves an element characteristic to residential construction on Cooper St. in the last decade of the Nineteenth Century. It is also one of the few Queen Anne buildings remaining in the Central Business District of Camden.”
Date of construction
1889
History
In 1889, an officer of the Anderson Preserving Company in Camden commissioned the Queen Anne-style home at 527 Cooper Street. Like other new homes on Cooper Street during the 1880s and 1890s, it likely replaced an earlier, less elaborate brick row house. The construction of the new home occurred as Camden grew in size and stature, and as Cooper Street became an increasingly fashionable address. The character of the street changed in the early 1880s when curbs were moved toward the center of the street by twelve feet on each side, which gave homeowners space to create a boulevard of homes fronted by porches, front yards, and gardens.<br /><br /><strong>Industry and Architects</strong><br /><br /> Abraham Anderson, a partner with the founder of Campbell’s Soup before forming his own firm, lived at 232 Cooper when he bought the 527 Cooper Street property up the street in 1885. Four years later, he sold 527 to his daughter, Ella A. Cox, who with her husband, John, newborn daughter Martha, and domestic servants became the first residents of a new house built on the lot in 1889.<br /><br /> To design the new home, John T. Cox (secretary-treasurer of his father-in-law’s company) commissioned <a href="In%201889,%20an%20officer%20of%20the%20Anderson%20Preserving%20Company%20in%20Camden%20commissioned%20the%20Queen%20Anne-style%20home%20at%20527%20Cooper%20Street.%20Like%20other%20new%20homes%20on%20Cooper%20Street%20during%20the%201880s%20and%201890s,%20it%20likely%20replaced%20an%20earlier,%20less%20elaborate%20brick%20row%20house.%20As%20Camden%20grew%20in%20size%20and%20stature,%20Cooper%20Street%20became%20an%20increasingly%20fashionable%20address.%20Its%20character%20changed%20in%20the%20early%201880s%20when%20curbs%20were%20moved%20toward%20the%20center%20of%20the%20street%20by%20twelve%20feet%20on%20each%20side,%20which%20gave%20homeowners%20space%20to%20create%20a%20boulevard%20of%20homes%20fronted%20by%20porches,%20front%20%20yards,%20and%20gardens.%20Industry%20and%20Architects%20Abraham%20Anderson,%20a%20partner%20with%20the%20founder%20of%20Campbell%E2%80%99s%20Soup%20before%20forming%20his%20own%20firm,%20lived%20at%20232%20Cooper%20when%20he%20bought%20the%20527%20Cooper%20Street%20property%20up%20the%20street%20in%201885.%20Four%20years%20later,%20he%20sold%20527%20to%20his%20daughter,%20Ella%20A.%20Cox,%20who%20with%20her%20husband,%20John,%20newborn%20daughter%20Martha,%20and%20domestic%20servants%20became%20the%20first%20residents%20of%20a%20new%20house%20built%20on%20the%20lot%20in%201889.%20To%20design%20the%20new%20home,%20John%20T.%20Cox%20(secretary-treasurer%20of%20his%20father-in-law%E2%80%99s%20company)%20commissioned%20Hazlehurst%20&%20Huckel,%20a%20Philadelphia%20firm%20known%20for%20residential,%20church,%20and%20commercial%20architecture.%20The%20firm%20had%20recently%20completed%20another%20Queen%20Anne-style%20home%20at%20323%20Cooper%20Street,%20within%20view%20of%20the%20Anderson%20residence%20at%20Second%20and%20Cooper.%20One%20of%20the%20partners,%20Edward%20P.%20Hazlehurst,%20had%20worked%20with%20one%20of%20Philadelphia%E2%80%99s%20best-known%20architects,%20Frank%20Furness,%20before%20starting%20his%20own%20firm%20with%20Samuel%20Huckel%20Jr.%20in%201881.%20The%20stature%20of%20the%20partners%20had%20grown%20in%201887,%20when%20they%20won%20a%20competition%20to%20design%20the%20Manufacturer%E2%80%99s%20Club%20prominently%20located%20at%20Broad%20and%20Walnut%20Streets%20in%20Philadelphia;%20later%20Huckel,%20individually%20won%20the%20commission%20to%20remodel%20Grand%20Central%20Station%20in%20New%20York.%20In%20the%20300%20and%20500%20blocks%20of%20Cooper%20Street,%20the%20two%20Hazlehurst%20&%20Huckel%20houses%20stood%20distinctively%20among%20the%20earlier%20generation%20of%20red-brick%20rowhouses%20built%20in%20the%201850s.%20They%20celebrated%20individuality%20in%20their%20varieties%20of%20materials%20and%20departures%20from%20symmetry,%20and%20they%20punctured%20the%20typical%20flat%20fa%C3%A7ade%20of%20earlier%20rowhouses%20by%20featuring%20bay%20windows%20and%20dormers.%20The%20house%20at%20527%20Cooper%20Street%20earned%20a%20full-page%20photograph%20in%20The%20Inland%20Architect%20and%20News%20Record,%20a%20monthly%20trade%20journal%20published%20in%20Chicago.%20The%20Cox%20family%20lived%20at%20527%20Cooper%20Street%20until%201897,%20when%20they%20followed%20the%20trend%20of%20other%20Camden%20elites%20by%20moving%20to%20more%20pastoral%20suburbs%20(Moorestown).%20While%20on%20Cooper%20Street,%20their%20household%20included%20at%20least%20two%20domestic%20servants,%20at%20least%20one%20of%20them%20an%20Irish%20immigrant.%20Prestige%20Rental%20The%20Cox%20family%20sold%20527%20Cooper%20Street%20to%20a%20real%20estate%20firm,%20opening%20a%20period%20of%20more%20than%20two%20decades%20when%20the%20home%20was%20leased%20to%20a%20series%20of%20high-profile%20tenants.%20These%20included%20four%20division%20managers%20for%20the%20Pennsylvania%20Railroad%E2%80%99s%20Amboy%20Division%20(formerly%20the%20Camden%20and%20Amboy%20Railroad).%20Among%20the%20most%20notable%20residents%20of%20527%20Cooper%20during%20these%20early%20years%20of%20the%20twentieth%20century,%20future%20New%20Jersey%20Supreme%20Court%20Justice%20Frank%20T.%20Lloyd%20Sr.%20lived%20at%20this%20address%20between%201908%20and%201918.%20Lloyd%20had%20lived%20in%20Camden%20since%201875,%20when%20he%20arrived%20from%20Delaware%20to%20work%20as%20a%20compositor%20for%20the%20West%20Jersey%20Press%20newspaper.%20He%20became%20a%20lawyer%20by%20studying%20with%20Philadelphia%20attorneys%20and%20maintained%20a%20Philadelphia%20law%20office.%20Elected%20to%20the%20New%20Jersey%20Assembly%20for%20the%20term%201896-97,%20Lloyd%20began%20a%20career%20of%20public%20service%20marked%20by%20combatting%20vice%20and%20upholding%20morality%20in%20his%20posts%20as%20legislator,%20Camden%20County%20Prosecutor,%20and%20Circuit%20Court%20Judge.%20In%20the%20Assembly,%20he%20wrote%20a%20new%20marriage%20law%20that%20ended%20Camden%E2%80%99s%20reputation%20as%20a%20place%20for%20quick%20get-away%20marriages%20by%20requiring%20a%20three-day%20wait%20after%20obtaining%20a%20marriage%20license.%20As%20a%20prosecutor,%20he%20took%20aim%20at%20illegal%20gambling,%20particularly%20at%20racetracks.%20The%20extended%20Lloyd%20family%20at%20527%20Cooper%20is%20glimpsed%20in%20the%20U.S.%20Census%20in%201910,%20during%20Frank%20Sr.%E2%80%99s%20service%20as%20Circuit%20Court%20Judge.%20Lloyd,%20then%2050%20years%20old,%20headed%20the%20family%20with%20his%20wife,%20Mary,%20age%2043;%20Mary%E2%80%99s%20older%20sister%20Sophia%20Pelouze,%2050%20years%20old%20and%20single,%20identified%20herself%20to%20the%20Census-taker%20as%20a%20%E2%80%9Ccompanion.%E2%80%9D%20The%20Lloyds,%20who%20had%20been%20married%2023%20years,%20had%20three%20children%20ranging%20in%20age%20from%2010%20to%2022.%20The%20domestic%20workers%20in%20the%20Lloyd%20household%20added%20not%20only%20their%20labor%20but%20also%20ethnic%20and%20racial%20diversity,%20as%20in%20many%20other%20Cooper%20Street%20households.%20Katie%20Tellus,%2031%20years%20old,%20immigrated%20to%20the%20United%20States%20from%20Bavaria%20(Austria)%20%E2%80%93%20a%20rarity%20among%20Cooper%20Street%20servants,%20who%20typically%20came%20from%20Ireland.%20A%20widow,%20she%20could%20not%20read%20or%20write.%20The%20Lloyds%20also%20employed%20James%20R.%20Taylor,%20a%2035-year-old%20Black%20man%20described%20in%20the%20Census%20as%20a%20butler%20but%20listed%20in%20later%20city%20directories%20as%20a%20cook.%20Taylor,%20born%20in%20either%20Maryland%20or%20Virginia%20(sources%20vary),%20was%20among%20southern%20African%20Americans%20who%20migrated%20to%20Camden%20and%20other%20northern%20cities%20in%20search%20of%20opportunity%20and%20an%20escape%20from%20repression%20and%20violence.%20Taylor%20displayed%20his%20aspirations,%20and%20perhaps%20his%20dissatisfaction%20with%20housework,%20in%20a%20series%20of%20classified%20ads%20in%201912.%20In%20the%20Situations%20Wanted%20column%20of%20the%20Courier-Post%20he%20advertised,%20%E2%80%9CYoung%20colored%20boy%20from%20South%20wishes%20position%20of%20any%20kind%E2%80%9D%20and%20%E2%80%9CSouthern%20colored%20boy%20wants%20position%20driving%20for%20doctor.%E2%80%9D%20His%20self-description%20as%20a%20%E2%80%9Cyoung%20colored%20boy,%E2%80%9D%20despite%20being%20a%20man%20in%20his%2030s,%20suggests%20the%20racial%20biases%20present%20in%20the%20South%20Jersey/Philadelphia%20region%20during%20the%20migration%20era.%20The%20Lloyds%E2%80%99%20occupancy%20at%20527%20Cooper%20Street%20encompassed%20the%20period%20of%20the%20First%20World%20War.%20Frank%20Sr.%20served%20on%20the%20home%20front%20as%20a%20federal%20food%20administrator%20while%20son%20Frank%20Jr.%20deployed%20to%20France.%20While%20in%20command%20of%20an%20aerial%20testing%20camp%20near%20Paris,%20Lieutenant%20Lloyd%20suffered%20a%20fall%20that%20resulted%20in%20broken%20jaw%20and%20two%20days%20of%20unconsciousness.%20The%20Philadelphia%20Inquirer%E2%80%99s%20lists%20of%20soldiers%20killed%20and%20injured%20identified%20the%20younger%20Lloyd%20as%20%E2%80%9Cwounded%20severely.%E2%80%9D%20After%20their%20years%20on%20Cooper%20Street,%20the%20Lloyd%20family%20moved%20to%20Pennsauken.%20Frank%20Lloyd%20Sr.,%20appointed%20to%20the%20New%20Jersey%20Supreme%20Court%20in%201924,%20lived%20until%201951.%20An%20editorial%20in%20the%20Courier-Post%20eulogized%20him%20as%20%E2%80%9Ca%20citizen%20who%20never%20will%20be%20forgotten,%20one%20whose%20life%20and%20character%20have%20been%20and%20will%20continue%20to%20be%20an%20inspiration.%E2%80%9D%20Block-Busting%20on%20Cooper%20Street%20During%20the%201920s,%20construction%20of%20the%20Delaware%20River%20Bridge%20(the%20Benjamin%20Franklin%20Bridge)%20between%20Camden%20and%20Philadelphia%20propelled%20a%20spirit%20of%20boosterism%20with%20profound%20implications%20for%20Cooper%20Street.%20The%20location%20of%20the%20bridge,%20and%20the%20extension%20of%20Broadway%20to%20reach%20it,%20created%20a%20new%20focal%20point%20for%20business%20activity%20at%20Sixth%20and%20Cooper,%20adjacent%20to%20527%20Cooper%20Street.%20As%20real%20estate%20interests%20eyed%20the%20rest%20of%20Cooper%20Street%20as%20an%20opportunity%20to%20convert%20older%20homes%20into%20apartments%20and%20businesses,%20527%20Cooper%20Street%20became%20a%20base%20for%20their%20efforts%20to%20transform%20Cooper%20Street%20into%20a%20New%20York-style%20%E2%80%9CFifth%20Avenue.%E2%80%9D%20Several%20women%20emerged%20as%20real%20estate%20entrepreneurs%20during%20these%20years,%20among%20them%20a%20new%20owner%20of%20527%20Cooper%20Street,%20Julia%20M.%20Carey.%20By%20the%20time%20the%20bridge%20opened%20in%201926,%20the%20%E2%80%9CCarey%20Building%E2%80%9D%20at%20527%20Cooper%20offered%20office%20suites%20and%20apartments.%20Carey%20leased%20one%20of%20the%20offices%20to%20another%20real%20estate%20dealer,%20Emma%20M.%20Asay,%20whose%20gender-neutral%20advertising%20invited%20prospective%20buyers%20to%20contact%20%E2%80%9CE.M.%20Asay.%E2%80%9D%20The%20Courier-Post%20noted%20in%201926,%20%E2%80%9CMiss%20Carey%20and%20Miss%20E.M.%20Asay%20have%20found%20Cooper%20street%20an%20advantageous%20location,%20as%20both%20of%20these%20%E2%80%98lady%20real%20estators%E2%80%99%20have%20had%20two%20splendid%20selling%20seasons%20on%20Camden%E2%80%99s%20famous%20residential%20thoroughfare,%20now%20giving%20way%20to%20business.%E2%80%9D%20Carey%E2%80%99s%20work%20on%20the%20street%20included%20three%20strategically%20located%20renovations,%20one%20per%20block,%20to%20convert%20321,%20421,%20and%20521%20Cooper%20into%20offices%20or%20apartments.%20She%20often%20collaborated%20with%20contractor%20John%20C.%20Gibson,%20also%20based%20at%20527%20Cooper%20while%20he%20worked%20on%20conversions%20and%20new%20construction%20up%20and%20down%20the%20street.%20For%20the%20rest%20of%20the%20twentieth%20century%20and%20into%20the%20twenty-first%20century,%20527%20Cooper%20served%20a%20variety%20of%20business%20and%20professional%20uses,%20including%20offices%20for%20doctors,%20lawyers,%20real%20estate%20agents,%20and%20title%20companies.%20For%20three%20years%20in%20the%201950s,%20the%20building%20served%20as%20headquarters%20for%20the%20Camden%20County%20Republican%20Party.%20By%201980,%20when%20the%20Camden%20Division%20of%20Planning%20surveyed%20Cooper%20Street%E2%80%99s%20historic%20structures,%20527%20Cooper%20Street%20had%20lost%20some%20%E2%80%93%20but%20by%20no%20means%20all%20%E2%80%93%20of%20its%20architectural%20character.%20%E2%80%9CIn%20spite%20of%20alterations%20to%20the%20entrance%20way%20and%20the%20removal%20of%20the%20second-story%20oriel%20that%20once%20occupied%20the%20left%20bay,%E2%80%9D%20surveyor%20J.P.%20Graham%20wrote,%20%E2%80%9Cthis%20house%20still%20conveys%20much%20of%20the%20feeling%20of%20the%20Queen%20Anne%20style.%E2%80%9D%20In%202016,%20LEAP%20Academy%20University%20Charter%20School%20Inc.%20acquired%20527%20Cooper%20Street%20from%20Thomas%20DeMarco%20Holdings,%20LLC,%20of%20Cherry%20Hill,%20for%20$310,000." target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Hazlehurst & Huckel</a>, a Philadelphia firm known for residential, church, and commercial architecture. The firm had recently completed another Queen Anne-style home at 323 Cooper Street, within view of the Anderson residence at Second and Cooper. One of the partners, Edward P. Hazlehurst, had worked with one of Philadelphia’s best-known architects, Frank Furness, before starting his own firm with Samuel Huckel Jr. in 1881. The stature of the partners had grown in 1887, when they won a competition to design the Manufacturer’s Club prominently located at Broad and Walnut Streets in Philadelphia; later, Huckel individually won the commission to remodel Grand Central Station in New York.<br /><br /> In the 300 and 500 blocks of Cooper Street, the two Hazlehurst & Huckel houses stood distinctively among the earlier generation of red-brick row houses built in the 1850s. They celebrated individuality in their varieties of materials and departures from symmetry, and they punctured the typical flat façade of earlier row houses by featuring bay windows and dormers. The house at 527 Cooper Street earned a full-page photograph in <a href="https://digital-libraries.artic.edu/digital/collection/mqc/id/7299/rec/5" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>The Inland Architect and News Record</em></a>, a monthly trade journal published in Chicago. (In 1894 the journal accorded the same treatment to the Henry Genet Taylor home at <a href="https://digital-libraries.artic.edu/digital/collection/mqc/id/8152/rec/13" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">305 Cooper Street</a>, designed by Wilson Eyre Jr.)<br /><br /> The Cox family lived at 527 Cooper Street until 1897, when they followed the trend of other Camden elites by moving to more pastoral suburbs (Moorestown). While on Cooper Street, their household included at least two domestic servants, at least one of them an Irish immigrant.<br /><br /><strong>Prestige Rental</strong><br /><br /> The Cox family sold 527 Cooper Street to a real estate firm, opening a period of more than two decades when the home was leased to a series of high-profile tenants. These included four division managers for the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Amboy Division (formerly the <a href="https://www.delawareriverheritagetrail.org/Camden-and-Amboy-Railroad.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Camden and Amboy Railroad</a>).<br /><br /> Among the most notable residents of 527 Cooper during these early years of the twentieth century, future New Jersey Supreme Court Justice <a href="http://www.dvrbs.com/people/camdenpeople-judgefranktlloyd.htm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Frank T. Lloyd Sr.</a> lived at this address between 1908 and 1918. Lloyd had lived in Camden since 1875, when he arrived from Delaware to work as a compositor for the <em>West Jersey Press</em> newspaper. He became a lawyer by studying with Philadelphia attorneys and maintained a Philadelphia law office. Elected to the New Jersey Assembly for the term 1896-97, Lloyd began a career of public service marked by combatting vice and upholding morality in his posts as legislator, Camden County Prosecutor, and Circuit Court Judge. In the Assembly, he wrote a new marriage law that ended Camden’s reputation as a place for quick get-away marriages by requiring a three-day wait after obtaining a marriage license. As a prosecutor, he took aim at illegal gambling, particularly at racetracks.<br /><br /> The extended Lloyd family at 527 Cooper is glimpsed in the U.S. Census in 1910, during Frank Sr.’s service as Circuit Court Judge. Lloyd, then 50 years old, headed the family with his wife, Mary, age 43; Mary’s older sister Sophia Pelouze, 50 years old and single, identified herself to the Census-taker as a “companion.” The Lloyds, who had been married 23 years, had three children ranging in age from 10 to 22.<br /><br /> The domestic workers in the Lloyd household added not only their labor but also ethnic and racial diversity, as in many other Cooper Street households. Katie Tellus, 31 years old, immigrated to the United States from <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Bavaria" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Bavaria</a> – a rarity among Cooper Street servants, who typically came from Ireland. A widow, she could not read or write. The Lloyds also employed James R. Taylor, a 35-year-old Black man described in the Census as a butler but listed in later city directories as a cook. Taylor, born in either Maryland or Virginia (sources vary), was among <a href="https://www.census.gov/dataviz/visualizations/020/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">southern African Americans who migrated</a> to Camden and other northern cities in search of opportunity and an escape from repression and violence. Taylor displayed his aspirations, and perhaps his dissatisfaction with housework, in a series of classified ads in 1912. In the Situations Wanted column of the Camden <em>Courier-Post</em> he advertised, “Young colored boy from South wishes position of any kind” and “Southern colored boy wants position driving for doctor.” His self-description as a “young colored boy,” despite being a man in his 30s, suggests the racial biases present in the South Jersey/Philadelphia region during the migration era.<br /><br /> The Lloyds’ occupancy at 527 Cooper Street encompassed the period of the First World War. Frank Sr. served on the home front as a federal food administrator while son Frank Jr. deployed to France. While in command of an aerial testing camp near Paris, Lieutenant Lloyd suffered a fall that resulted in broken jaw and two days of unconsciousness. The <em>Philadelphia Inquirer’s</em> lists of soldiers killed and injured identified the younger Lloyd as “wounded severely.” After their years on Cooper Street, the Lloyd family moved to Pennsauken. Frank Lloyd Sr., appointed to the New Jersey Supreme Court in 1924, lived until 1951. An editorial in the <em>Courier-Post</em> eulogized him as “a citizen who never will be forgotten, one whose life and character have been and will continue to be an inspiration.”<br /><br /><strong>Block-Busting on Cooper Street</strong><br /><br /> During the 1920s, construction of the Delaware River Bridge (the Benjamin Franklin Bridge) between Camden and Philadelphia propelled a spirit of boosterism with profound implications for Cooper Street. The location of the bridge, and the extension of Broadway to reach it, created a new focal point for business activity at Sixth and Cooper, adjacent to 527 Cooper Street. As real estate interests eyed the rest of Cooper Street as an opportunity to convert older homes into apartments and businesses, 527 Cooper Street became a base for their efforts to transform Cooper Street into a New York-style “Fifth Avenue.”<br /><br /> Several women emerged as real estate entrepreneurs during these years, among them a new owner of 527 Cooper Street, Julia M. Carey. By the time the bridge opened in 1926, the “Carey Building” at 527 Cooper offered office suites and apartments. Carey leased one of the offices to another real estate dealer, Emma M. Asay, whose gender-neutral advertising invited prospective buyers to contact “E.M. Asay.” The <em>Courier-Post</em> noted in 1926, “Miss Carey and Miss E.M. Asay have found Cooper street an advantageous location, as both of these ‘lady real estators’ have had two splendid selling seasons on Camden’s famous residential thoroughfare, now giving way to business.” Carey’s work on the street included three strategically located renovations, one per block, to convert 321, 421, and 521 Cooper into offices or apartments. She often collaborated with contractor John C. Gibson, also based at 527 Cooper while he worked on conversions and new construction up and down the street.<br /><br /> For the rest of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century, 527 Cooper served a variety of business and professional uses, including offices for doctors, lawyers, real estate agents, and title companies. For three years in the early 1950s, the building served as headquarters for the Camden County Republican Party. By 1980, when the Camden Division of Planning surveyed Cooper Street’s historic structures, 527 Cooper Street had lost some – but by no means all – of its architectural character. “In spite of alterations to the entrance way and the removal of the second-story oriel that once occupied the left bay,” surveyor J.P. Graham wrote, “this house still conveys much of the feeling of the Queen Anne style.”<br /><br /> In 2016, LEAP Academy University Charter School Inc. acquired 527 Cooper Street from Thomas DeMarco Holdings, LLC, of Cherry Hill, for $310,000.
Associated Individuals
All known residents and businesses are listed in the Cooper Street database. <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15gz3_mGk3FcNl0TPaOZAq6B1CHvOpqRcY7a99xkp_l4/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Click here</a> and scroll to 527.
Associated architects/builders
Edward P. Hazlehurst
Samuel Huckel Jr.
Sources
<p>Camden and Philadelphia newspapers (Newspapers.com)<br /> Camden City Directories (Camden County Historical Society, Ancestry.com)<br /> Camden County Property Records<br /> Cooper Street Historic District, National Register Nomination, U.S. Department of Interior.<br /><em>Inland Architect and News Record</em>, Ryerson and Burnham Libraries, the Art Institute of Chicago<br /><em>Manuals of the Legislature of New Jersey</em>, 1896-97<br /> Philadelphia Architects and Buildings Project, Athenaeum of Philadelphia<br /> Structures Survey, 527 Cooper Street, New Jersey Office of Cultural and Environmental Services<br /> U.S. and New Jersey Censuses (Ancestry.com)</p>
Research by
Charlene Mires, Lucy Davis, and Nick Prehn. Thanks to Benjamin Saracco for assistance locating Manuals for the Legislature of New Jersey.
Posted by
Charlene Mires
Please communicate 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
527 Cooper Street
Description
An account of the resource
Contributing structure, Cooper Street Historic District.
1890s
1900s
1910s
1920s
1930s
1940s
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s
500 Block
527 Cooper Street
Bavaria
Black Migration
Bridge Impact
Delaware
Domestic Life
Extended Family
Food Industry
Hazlehurst & Huckel
Immigration
Ireland
Maryland
Moorestown
Pennsauken
Philadelphia
Public Officials
Queen Anne
Railroad Executives
Real Estate
Renovations
Servants
Virginia
World War I