7 10 100 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 Data Description An account of the resource Data about past residents, compiled from city directories and the U.S. Census (work in progress). Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Rutgers University-Camden Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Data compiled from public records. 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 Cooper Street by Block, 1839-1860 (before house numbering) Description An account of the resource Data about residents of Cooper Street in Camden, New Jersey. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Philadelphia city directories (Camden listings) and the U.S. and New Jersey censuses. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Rutgers University-Camden. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1839-1960. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Compiled by Charlene Mires Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Compiled from public sources. Relation A related resource For later years, also see <a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/collections/show/5">Cooper Street Database</a>. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Google Sheets database: <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ReDb-ps_X08EscIu8yeVQCMIHBHKRgrS1dsBTy86kBk/edit?usp=sharing">Link here to view.</a> 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 Data Description An account of the resource Data about past residents, compiled from city directories and the U.S. Census (work in progress). Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Rutgers University-Camden Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Data compiled from public records. 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 Fourth Street (Lawrence to Pearl Street) Residents Database Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1876-1964 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Compiled by Charlene Mires, Tia Antonelli, and Brian Phillips Description An account of the resource Data about past residents of Fourth Street in Camden, NJ. Fourth Street between Lawrence and Pearl Streets is currently a walkway through the campus of Rutgers-Camden. Earlier, Fourth Street in these blocks developed as a residential street between 1876 and 1880 as the Cooper family sold land north of Cooper Street for residential development. Builders bought single or multiple lots, filled them with three-story row houses or twins, then sold or leased the residences. In the block between Penn and Linden Streets, a number of the homes on the west side of the street were converted in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century for various uses of the <a href="https://cooperstreet.wordpress.com/2021/04/17/567/">North Baptist Church</a>, an important community institution around the corner on Linden Street. Construction of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, completed in 1926, and the subsequent High-Speed Line over the bridge led to demolition of the houses between Linden and Pearl Streets in the 1920s and early 1930s. Other homes on the street survived until the 1960s, when Rutgers University initiated an urban renewal project to enlarge its Camden campus. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Camden, NJ, City Directories; U.S. and New Jersey Census; property deeds; Camden newspapers. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Rutgers University-Camden Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Compiled from public sources. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Google Sheets Database: <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Z0pFu5EkW_jlOhd4p9VlyjIrhVawGxYkpum0tVfa3bg/edit?usp=sharing">Link here to view</a>. 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 Data Description An account of the resource Data about past residents, compiled from city directories and the U.S. Census (work in progress). Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Rutgers University-Camden Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Data compiled from public records. 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 Penn Street (Third to Fifth Street) Residents Database Description An account of the resource Data about past residents of Penn Street, between Third and Fifth Streets, in Camden, NJ. These blocks of Penn Street are currently a walkway through the campus of Rutgers University-Camden, closed to traffic. The only surviving structure is the "Ayer Mansion" at 406 Penn Street, currently the location of the Rutgers-Camden Admissions Office. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Camden, N.J., City Directories; U.S. and New Jersey Census; property deeds, Camden newspapers. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Rutgers University-Camden Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1860s-1990s Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Compiled by Audrey Johnson, Milosz Krupinski, Charlene Mires, and Robin Schwarzmann. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Compiled from public sources. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Google Sheets database: <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1INnGprcu3X9KtsdXav4ufnWiKYowxu-NqKU8QtrwOsA/edit?usp=sharing">Link here to view</a>. 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 Data Description An account of the resource Data about past residents, compiled from city directories and the U.S. Census (work in progress). Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Rutgers University-Camden Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Data compiled from public records. 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 Linden Terrace Residents Database (Linden Street, Fourth to Fifth Streets) Description An account of the resource Data about past residents of the 400 block of Linden Street in Camden, NJ. Developed in 1871, this block known as Linden Terrace was a distinctive development of 34 stone-facade row houses on a widened street landscaped with three oval parks with fountains. The block began to lose its coherence in the 1920s and 1930s when some houses on the north side were demolished for construction of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge and light rail to Philadelphia. Urban renewal to create the Rutgers-Camden campus took down the rest of the block in 1962-66. The site is now occupied by Armitage Hall and its adjacent parking lot. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Camden, NJ, City Directories, U.S. and New Jersey Census; property deeds, Camden newspapers. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Rutgers University-Camden Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1871-1960s Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Compiled by students and faculty at Rutgers-Camden: Edward Cassidy, John Coon, Joseph Del Percio, Elizabeth Eimer, Kieran Garrity, Connor Kelly, Andrea Macho, Charlene Mires, Jonathan Pustylnik, Malcom Rambert, Johanna Rudel, and Nia Stewart. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Compiled from public sources. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource North side of street, Google Sheets database: <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1s_axB2bM0YjItiXkXNHMaqzihDLPQq4IsSaDBO73DTM/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Link here to view</a>. South side of street, Google Sheets database: <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19Rq4Oi_xXsGzUbq9XxXKJMr48YLkvEIUziZf-szA7oo/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Link here to view</a>. https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/files/original/4ee3e4a23b0c23ad01e1d2906ab02d19.jpg 34eac2d7d9580edcc831dcd7e1765e66 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 Built c. 1910, 411 Cooper Street was the last single-family home built in the blocks that later became the Cooper Street Historic District. The district is defined as representing broad patterns of American history: "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." The latter transition is exemplified by 411 Cooper Street, which began as a family home then turned to professional and commercial uses in the twentieth century. Its early occupants included families headed by medical professionals and business leaders; after brief service as a funeral home during the 1930s, 411 Cooper Street became an office building for real estate-related firms. Acquired by Rutgers University in the 1990s, the building became home to the Walter Rand Institute for Public Affairs. Architecturally, according to the Camden Division of Planning survey of Cooper Street structures, the house “is representative of the twentieth century extension of the urban rowhouse inspired by classical details, if not forms; and thus, is an important link in the stylistic chain displayed by the houses of Cooper Street.” Architectural style Georgian Revival/Neo-Classical (as defined in historic structure survey by City of Camden Division of Planning, 1980). Date of construction c. 1910 History On January 17, 1910, the Philadelphia Inquirer noted that “Dr. and Mrs. Frederick A. Slack are now settled in their handsome new home at 411 Cooper Street.” On a street dominated by nineteenth-century rowhouses, the Slacks’ new residence stood apart with a distinctly more modern and grand appearance created by yellow-orange Roman-style bricks and a substantial front porch with sandstone balustrades. Unknown at the time, 411 Cooper Street was the last single-family home that would be built in the area that later became the Cooper Street Historic District. The Slack family continued the trend of Cooper Street as a home for medical professionals. Frederick Slack, 35, was a dentist whose office was in Philadelphia; in 1910 he and his wife Lorell, 28, had a two-year-old son, Frederick Jr. The lot on Cooper Street, and perhaps the house as well, appears from deeds to have been a gift to Lorell from her uncle, Camden funeral director Fithian S. Simmons, who bought several properties on Cooper Street during the first decade of the twentieth century. He conveyed 411 Cooper Street to his niece on April 22, 1909, for the token sum of $1. The Slacks occupied the home for its first decade as their family grew to include a second son, Thomas, born in 1912. They also employed domestic servants, showing a preference for Black help in the classified ads they placed in local newspapers. The domestic workers connect 411 Cooper Street with the history of Black migration from the South: in 1910 the U.S. Census recorded the household as including Estelle C. Williams, 18, who was born in Virginia, and in 1915 the New Jersey Census recorded Jessie Ryan, 20, also born in Virginia. In addition to live-in help, the Slacks employed laundresses up to two days a week. While living in Camden, the Slack family spent summers at a cottage in Ocean City and visited Lorell Slack’s family in Millville, Cumberland County, on holidays. Around 1920, however, they moved to Philadelphia’s more fashionable western suburbs. By 1930 they lived in Lower Merion, Montgomery County. Their oldest son, Frederick Jr., in later life <a href="https://www.nailsmag.com/encyclopedia/nsi-nail-systems-international">invented a method of repairing fingernails with acrylics</a> and founded the company that became <a href="https://nsinails.com/about-nsi/">Nail Systems International</a> (NSI). Manufacturing and Business Leaders The next two occupants of 411 Cooper Street connect the house with key manufacturing and business interests in Camden. Morris E. Noecker, president of the Noecker & Ake Ship Building Company, previously lived near his shipyard at Twenty-Seventh Street opposite Petty Island. His experiences illustrate Camden’s history as a place of business opportunity during the early twentieth century. Noecker, who was born in Leesport (Berks County), Pennsylvania, had come to Camden in 1902 and started the shipyard in 1905, specializing in building barges and other wood watercraft. On Cooper Street, the Noecker household included Morris, age 51; his wife Lizzie, age 49; and three grown children in their 20s, a daughter and two sons, all born in Pennsylvania. The Noeckers occupied 411 Cooper Street for just three years before moving out of Camden to Collingswood. Starting in 1923 and for the rest of the 1920s, 411 Cooper Street became home to a member of the Taylor family, which had operated the Taylor Bros. flour and feed business in Camden since 1865. G. Wilbur Taylor and his family had been displaced from their earlier home in the 500 block of Linden Street by construction for the first bridge between Camden and Philadelphia, the Delaware River Bridge (later named the Benjamin Franklin Bridge), completed in 1926. At the Linden Street address, their household in 1920 consisted of G. Wilbur, 55; his wife Emilie, 50; daughter Gwendolyn, 27; and two servants, Emma Clare, a 61-year-old widow who had been born in Maryland to parents from France and Germany; and Bella Chambers, a 52-year-old Irish immigrant. Cooper Street proved to be the last home for the elder Coopers. Emilie Taylor, a lifelong Camden resident active in the Daughters of the American Revolution, died in 1928 after an illness of three weeks. G. Wilbur Taylor died in 1930. Shortly before his death, Taylor initiated construction of an elevator in the home, suggesting either infirmity or plans to join other properties on Cooper Street in converting to commercial use. Mixed Use during the Great Depression The house at 411 Cooper Street stood vacant in 1931 as the Great Depression deepened. Its uses throughout the 1930s were temporary and commercial, in keeping with a movement by Camden real estate interests to establish Cooper Street as a business thoroughfare. In 1932, the funeral home Joseph H. Murray and Son temporarily moved into 411 Cooper Street after a water heater explosion damaged its usual location across the street at 408 Cooper. A restaurant called Four-Eleven opened in the building in 1934 but closed in 1935 after neighbors objected to its application for a liquor license. A gas explosion during renovations in 1936 ended a planned purchase of the building by Paul Slaughter, the president of Hunting Park Motors in Philadelphia By 1937 an undertaker, Bertha Kephart, operated her business on the first floor, and the upper floors became business and professional offices, most connected with construction and real estate activity. During the 1940s, 411 Cooper Street gained a new family in residence, although some office uses remained in the building. Francesco D’Imperio, a physician and World War II veteran, acquired the building to use as both his office and home for his family, which included his wife Antoinette and two young sons. While Francesco advanced in his career as a gastroenterologist, Antoinette became known for her work on behalf of postwar orphans in Italy, which earned the Star of Solidarity award from the Italian government. In the 1950s, the D’Imperio family joined the trend of professionals moving from Camden to the suburbs; by 1954 they lived in Haddonfield and by 1960 they moved to Cherry Hill, where Dr. D’Imperio also located his practice. Apartments and Redevelopment From the 1950s through the 1970s, 411 Cooper Street housed offices and rental apartments; among the tenants in 1973, Cedric Wiggins was a student at the Rutgers School of Law and became chairman of the Black Law Student Union on the Camden campus. In the early 1990s, following the introduction of historic preservation tax credits, Rutgers University entered into a partnership with a redevelopment firm, Vintage Living, to rehabilitate both 411 and 321 Cooper Street into modernized offices. The location of 411 Cooper, directly across the street from a new federal courthouse then under construction, positioned the building well for legal offices. The Camden County Bar Association moved in, as did several attorney’s offices offering bankruptcy and immigration services. By 1998, however, back taxes owed on the property forced a sheriff’s sale and led to title transferring entirely to Rutgers. Under Rutgers ownership, 411 Cooper Street became home to various university offices, including the <a href="https://rand.camden.rutgers.edu/">Walter Rand Institute for Public Affairs</a>, which continued to occupy the building in 2022. Associated Individuals For a list of all known occupants of 411 Cooper Street, visit the <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15gz3_mGk3FcNl0TPaOZAq6B1CHvOpqRcY7a99xkp_l4/edit?usp=sharing">Cooper Street Residents Database</a> and scroll down to 411. Sources Camden and Philadelphia Newspapers (Newspapers.com). Camden City Directories (Camden County Historical Society and Ancestry.com). Camden County Property Records. Cooper Street Historic District, National Register Nomination, U.S. Department of Interior. Digital Photographs Collection, Library Company of Philadelphia. New Jersey State Census, 1915, U.S. Census, 1910-1950 (Ancestry.com). Property Report, 411 Cooper Street, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Note on sources: Earlier documentation stated this house was constructed in 1924 by G. Wilbur Taylor, based on hearsay. This research updates and corrects the record. Research by Charlene Mires Posted by Charlene Mires Send corrections to cmires@camden.rutgers.edu. Illustrations Photograph by Jacob Lechner 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 411 Cooper Street Description An account of the resource Contributing structure, Cooper Street Historic District. 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 400 Block 411 Cooper Street Attorneys Cherry Hill Dentists Doctors Funeral Homes Mongtomery County Pennsylvania Real Estate Redevelopment Rutgers-Camden Servants Southern Migration https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/files/original/4e53ac230474a7c31376cab24fb934a9.jpg d6496c2afaa5d93937e47df076ba2b78 https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/files/original/9ba3a336946f11f0cf4e845b2d355357.jpg 3829dcca065fcec10e3a2b4b9ae2de52 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 1. Photograph by Jacob Lechner 2. 400 block of Cooper Street (Camden County Historical Society) Significance Extensively remodeled from its original appearance, the building at 413 Cooper Street and the lot where it stands embody the historical development of Camden. A commercial façade obscures a Second Empire-style house built in 1883, a stylish residence that replaced an earlier wood-frame house in the same location. The lot was part of a larger parcel purchased from the Cooper family in 1845 by a woman who lived in Philadelphia, Hannah Atwood, who managed up to seven houses built on her land as rental properties. This property, therefore, illustrates one of the defining characteristics of the Cooper Street Historic District: “These buildings demonstrate the street's change from residential and professional to commercial." Notable occupants of the houses at this address included William Doughten and Harry Humphreys, two pioneers of the lumber industry that dominated Camden’s frontage on the Delaware River during the nineteenth century. The building has been owned by Rutgers University since 2009. Architectural style Second Empire style house obscured by modern commercial façade applied in the twentieth century. Date of construction 1883, modified c. 1928 History The lot where 413 Cooper Street stands was among the first properties developed on the north side of Cooper Street as members of the Cooper family began to sell their inherited land during the 1840s. Among the purchasers, <a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/items/show/54" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Hannah Atwood</a>, who lived in Philadelphia, acquired two lots in 1845 and 1846. Atwood’s purchase spanned sixty-five feet on Cooper Street east of Fourth and extended north to Lawrence Street. Seven houses were built on the property during Atwood’s ownership, including a wood-frame house at 413 and two others facing Cooper Street, and four smaller houses facing Lawrence Street. The property at 413 Cooper Street was described in 1847 in an advertisement placed in the Philadelphia Public Ledger: "A modern built three-story Frame Home, with two-story Back Building, with a choice lot of Fruit Trees in the yard. The lot is 23 feet front by 150 deep to a back street. This property is pleasantly situated and in a good neighborhood." Although offered for sale at that time, the lot and the buildings upon it remained with Atwood. Rental Income for an Artist’s Family The Camden houses, managed as rental properties, provided steady income for Atwood, a married woman whose husband, an artist, was frequently absent and dependent on patrons for income. <a href="https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/digitool%3A78798">Jesse Atwood</a>, 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. He also painted portraits of presidents, including Abraham Lincoln, and promoted this work to entice other patrons as he traveled. According to Who's Who in American History, Hannah and Jesse Atwood came to Philadelphia from Rhode Island around 1830, which may have been shortly after their marriage. The Atwoods appear to have lived in the wood-frame house that stood at 413 Cooper Street in the late 1840s; during that time, Jesse Atwood created a bust from his portrait of Zachary Taylor and offered it for sale. They lived in Camden again between 1855 and 1860, but otherwise they lived in Philadelphia. Throughout the 1860s and 1870s, other tenants occupied the row houses on Hannah's Cooper Street land (spanning 413, <a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/items/show/45">415</a>, and <a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/items/show/48">417</a> Cooper). From 1861 to 1863, the occupants of 413 Cooper included William T. Doughten, who moved to Camden in the 1850s to establish a lumber business at Kaighn’s Point. (Doughten next purchased a home up the street at <a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/items/show/71" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">427 Cooper</a>.) Jesse Atwood died in Philadelphia in 1870, at the age of 79, and Hannah lived until 1883. Both are buried in Philadelphia’s Laurel Hill Cemetery. Hannah's will specified the houses at 415 and 417 Cooper Street as bequests to her granddaughter Clara Fisher, without mentioning the adjoining property at 413. Although Atwood envisioned the houses as an ongoing source of independent income for her granddaughter, Clara's husband sold 413 Cooper Street to its tenant, Restore Lamb, in 1883, and Clara sold 415 and 417 Cooper Street by 1888. Hannah Atwood's long record of ownership on Cooper Street faded from memory. New House, New Style, New Family At the time of Hannah Atwood’s death, Cooper Street was undergoing a transformation to a more fashionable residential address. In the early 1880s, the Camden City Council approved a resident’s proposal to move the curb lines of Cooper Street properties into the street by twelve feet on each side, thereby creating room for gardens or lawns in front of every house. The more bucolic thoroughfare touched off an era for construction of new, more fashionable homes. At 413 Cooper Street, an older wood-frame house gave way to a Second Empire-style house with a stone façade and mansard roof, described by the Camden Courier as a “comfortable dwelling replete with modern conveniences.” Restore Lamb, the tenant who bought the earlier wood-frame house, carried out the redevelopment project in 1883 shortly after his daughter, Lizzie, died in the old house of typhoid fever at the age of 25. He then sold the new house in 1884 to a commission fish merchant, Albert Rowe, who moved from Second Street with his wife, Henrietta, and two children. They employed at least one domestic servant, an Irish immigrant named Kitty Keelan. The house at 413 Cooper Street changed hands again in 1887, opening a long-term period of occupancy by the family of lumber merchant Harry Humphreys that lasted into the 1920s. Humphreys, in his early 30s when he bought the home, had recently opened his own lumber business on the Camden waterfront after years working for other firms. The Humphreys family, which had been living nearby on north Third Street, also included Humphreys’ mother, his wife, and a young son. The family employed domestic servants, usually young, female Irish immigrants. Harry Humphreys’ mother, Evaline, died in 1892, but the family also expanded with two additional children who grew up in the Cooper Street home. Harry Humphreys took an active role in civic affairs as well as in business, serving on the Camden Park Commission and for a time as a city councilman. He served as a vestryman of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church a block away on Market Street. The Camden Morning Post once described him as a man with a memorable smile: “… he was a man who seemed always in the brightest of moods, a man who found a rare satisfaction in his associations with other men, a man who knew nothing of cynicism but ever made the most of the good things which life has to offer.” Humphreys parted with the home at 413 Cooper Street in the 1920s, when he was in his 60s, in a decade when Camden real estate interests sought to transition Cooper Street into a commercial corridor. (Humphreys’ cousin, Louis Humphreys, was a leading real estate broker.) After selling the house to a pair of lawyers in 1928, Harry Humphreys and his wife, Susanna, divided their time between the new Walt Whitman Hotel in Camden and the home of a married daughter in Merchantville. Office Building The two lawyers who bought 413 Cooper Street, Joseph Beck Tyler and A. Moulton McNutt, may have been responsible for the new commercial façade that obscured the structure’s earlier history as a family home. Beginning their purchase in 1928, the building primarily housed office tenants but retained at least two rental apartments that were documented by the U.S. Census in 1940. In addition to the Tyler law firm, which grew to include two grown sons in the 1940s, the building housed offices for an insurance agent, an engineer, and a mortgage company. During the 1940s, its business tenants included an optician and a dentist. Like the owners of the building, these business and professional people maintained offices in Camden but lived in the suburbs. By the late 1960s, the building had passed to heirs of Tyler and McNutt and notices for sheriff’s sale and foreclosure appeared in the Camden Courier-Post. It was acquired in 1980 by Nise Productions, notable as the producer of the television program <a href="http://www.nisebiz.com/project/doa/">Dancin’ On Air</a>–but Camden served only as the mailing address for the show, which was telecast on Channel 17 from a studio in West Philadelphia. Nise Productions sold the building to Rutgers University in 2009. Associated Individuals For a list of all known occupants of 413 Cooper Street, visit the <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15gz3_mGk3FcNl0TPaOZAq6B1CHvOpqRcY7a99xkp_l4/edit?usp=sharing">Cooper Street Residents Database</a> and scroll down to 413. Sources Camden and Philadelphia Newspapers (Newspapers.com and Genealogy Bank) Camden City Directories (Camden County Historical Society and Ancestry.com). Camden City Atlas, 1877 (Camden County Historical Society). Camden County Property Records. Cooper Street Historic District, National Register Nomination, U.S. Department of Interior. New Jersey State Census, 1855-1915, U.S. Census, 1960-1950 (Ancestry.com). Property Report, 413 Cooper Street, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Note on sources: Earlier documentation stated this house was constructed c. 1860 with alteration c. 1910. This research updates and corrects the record. 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 413 Cooper Street Description An account of the resource Contributing structure, Cooper Street Historic District. 1840s 1850s 1860s 1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 400 Block 413 Cooper Street Artists Attorneys Engineers Investment Lumber Opticians Real Estate Renovations Rutgers-Camden Servants Television https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/files/original/14325b38d22c59fa4f7e22527ac57b32.jpg 038f6edbc57a8ae88f35d922f1c0422a 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 Near the intersection of Fifth Street, 427 Cooper Street is among the large residences of the 1880s and 1890s that represent the height of Camden’s nineteenth-century prosperity and the subsequent transitions of a fashionable neighborhood following the 1926 completion of the first bridge across the Delaware River to Philadelphia. The residence, designed by the Moses & King architectural firm of Philadelphia, contributes to the National Register of Historic Places’ recognition of Cooper Street’s significance in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, “when industry, commerce, and agriculture combined to make this city the economic and urban center of Southern New Jersey.” In its uses over time, the house demonstrates transitions from nineteenth-century trades to real estate development and the practice of medicine in the houses on Cooper Street. In this way it supports the statement of significance for the National Register: “These buildings [in the district] demonstrate the street's change from residential and professional to commercial." Architectural style Richardsonian Romanesque/Queen Anne Date of construction c. 1890 History The distinctive stone house at 427 Cooper Street replaced an earlier brick house that stood at the same location from at least the 1850s. The north side of Cooper Street filled with rowhouses during the late 1840s and early 1850s as members of the Cooper family sold their inherited land. Earlier Brick House Early owners of the lot at this address included Thomas W. Dyott Jr., a Philadelphia wholesaler of patent medicines who bought the property in 1852 (in addition to the <a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/items/show/72" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">adjacent corner lot</a> at Fifth and Cooper, which he had acquired in 1846). In business with his father, also named Thomas, Dyott sold remedies such as <a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/exhibits/show/excavation/item/2">Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup</a> for quieting babies and cures for rheumatism, liver ailments, and other maladies. <a href="https://blog.phillyhistory.org/index.php/2012/01/thomas-w-dyott-snake-oil-soda-water-and-the-perennially-seductive-philadelphia-bottle/">His father</a> had immigrated England in 1805 opened a drug store, claimed to be a doctor, and became one of the nation's leading purveyors of patent medicines. Seeking bottles for his remedies, the elder Dyott also went into the bottle manufacturing business and by the 1820s had a thriving complex of factories in the Kensington section of Philadelphia. That venture grew into a company town called Dyottville but collapsed in bankruptcy after a run on its bank during the panic of 1837. The patent medicine business remained active during the 1850s as T.W. Dyott & Sons. City directories document Thomas Dyott Jr. as a Camden resident at "Cooper above Fourth" from 1855 to 1857, and his lot at 427 Cooper Street included a brick house by the time he sold it in 1860. Documented that year in their next home in Philadelphia, the Dyott family included Thomas, his wife Sarah, four children ranging in age from 8 to 16, two Irish immigrant domestic servants, and two boarders. Dyott also sold his adjacent corner lot at Fifth and Cooper Streets to a new owner in 1860. The next owner of 427 Cooper Street, builder Thomas Atkinson (later a mayor of Camden), resold it just two years later. This transaction in 1862 opened a long period of ownership by William T. Doughten, a pioneer in Camden’s riverfront lumber industry. Doughten had moved to Camden from Gloucester City in the 1850s to establish a lumber business at Kaighn’s Point. Before acquiring 427 Cooper Street, Doughten and his wife, Abigail, had rented another home in the same block, a less substantial wood-frame house at 413 Cooper Street. At the new address, by 1870 their household included two sons and two daughters, two unrelated women seamstresses, and a domestic servant, Phebe Oney, described in the 1870 Census as “mulatto,” born in Delaware and illiterate. Although the family moved elsewhere in Camden in the 1870s and 1880s, Doughten retained ownership of the house as an investment property. Among the tenants was a dentist, Alphonso Irwin, who had his home and office at 427 from 1881 until 1885, when he purchased the house next door, 425 Cooper Street, which still stands. New Streetscape, New House The property changed ownership in 1889 during the greatest takeoff of Camden’s population, which nearly tripled between 1880 and 1920, from about 41,000 to more than 116,000 people. Cooper Street also changed in the early 1880s after residents persuaded the City Council to move curb lines toward the center to create twelve-foot front yards for the length of the street. The more pastoral setting touched off a trend of new houses that stood in contrast to earlier rowhouses as much larger, fashionable statements of their owners’ success and ambition in business. In place of the earlier house owned by Doughten, real estate broker James White built a new house designed to serve as both his office and residence for himself, his wife, and two daughters. The Whites engaged the Philadelphia architectural firm <a href="The%20distinctive%20stone%20house%20at%20427%20Cooper%20Street%20replaced%20an%20earlier%20brick%20rowhouse%20that%20stood%20at%20the%20same%20location%20from%20at%20least%20the%201850s.%20During%20the%201840s%20and%201850s,%20the%20north%20side%20of%20Cooper%20Street%20filled%20with%20rowhouses%20as%20members%20of%20the%20Cooper%20family%20sold%20their%20inherited%20land.%20Early%20owners%20and%20occupants%20at%20this%20address%20included%20Thomas%20W.%20Dyott,%20a%20druggist%20(1852-57);%20Thomas%20Atkinson,%20a%20builder%20and%20later%20mayor%20of%20Camden%20(1860-62);%20and%20William%20T.%20Doughten,%20a%20pioneer%20in%20Camden%E2%80%99s%20riverfront%20lumber%20industry%20who%20purchased%20the%20house%20in%201862.%20William%20Doughten%20came%20to%20Camden%20from%20Gloucester%20City%20in%20the%201850s%20to%20establish%20a%20lumber%20business%20at%20Kaighn%E2%80%99s%20Point.%20He%20and%20his%20wife,%20Abigail,%20rented%20another%20home%20in%20the%20same%20block,%20a%20wood-frame%20house%20at%20413%20Cooper%20Street,%20for%20two%20years%20before%20purchasing%20the%20more%20substantial%20brick%20house%20at%20427.%20At%20the%20new%20address,%20by%201870%20their%20household%20included%20two%20sons%20and%20two%20daughters,%20two%20unrelated%20women%20seamstresses,%20and%20a%20domestic%20servant,%20Phebe%20Oney,%20described%20in%20the%201870%20Census%20as%20%E2%80%9Cmulatto,%E2%80%9D%20born%20in%20Delaware%20and%20illiterate.%20Although%20the%20family%20moved%20elsewhere%20in%20Camden%20in%20the%201870s%20and%201880s,%20Doughten%20retained%20ownership%20of%20the%20house%20as%20an%20investment%20property.%20Among%20the%20tenants%20was%20a%20dentist,%20Alphonso%20Irwin,%20who%20had%20his%20home%20and%20office%20at%20427%20from%201881%20until%201885,%20when%20he%20purchased%20the%20house%20next%20door,%20425%20Cooper%20Street,%20which%20still%20stands.%20New%20Streetscape,%20New%20House%20The%20property%20changed%20ownership%20in%201889%20during%20the%20greatest%20takeoff%20of%20Camden%E2%80%99s%20population,%20which%20nearly%20tripled%20between%201880%20and%201920,%20from%20about%2041,000%20to%20more%20than%20116,000%20people.%20Cooper%20Street%20also%20changed%20in%20the%20early%201880s%20after%20residents%20persuaded%20the%20City%20Council%20to%20move%20curb%20lines%20toward%20the%20center%20to%20create%20twelve-foot%20front%20yards%20for%20the%20length%20of%20the%20street.%20The%20more%20pastoral%20setting%20touched%20off%20a%20trend%20of%20new%20houses%20that%20stood%20in%20contrast%20to%20earlier%20rowhouses%20as%20much%20larger,%20fashionable%20statements%20of%20their%20owners%E2%80%99%20success%20and%20ambition%20in%20business.%20In%20place%20of%20the%20earlier%20house%20owned%20by%20Doughten,%20real%20estate%20broker%20James%20White%20built%20a%20new%20house%20designed%20to%20serve%20as%20both%20his%20office%20and%20residence%20for%20himself,%20his%20wife,%20and%20two%20daughters.%20%20The%20Whites%20engaged%20the%20Philadelphia%20architectural%20firm%20Moses%20&%20King%20to%20design%20a%20distinctive%20home%20that%20incorporated%20a%20strong%20statement%20of%20Richardsonian%20Romanesque%20style%20with%20a%20stone%20arched%20window%20on%20the%20first%20floor%20but%20also%20ornamental%20touches%20that%20could%20be%20described%20as%20Queen%20Anne,%20a%20style%20that%20gained%20in%20popularity%20in%20the%20United%20States%20following%20its%20appearance%20at%20the%201876%20Centennial%20Exhibition%20in%20Philadelphia.%20The%20residence%20thus%20combined%20two%20architectural%20statements%20in%20one%20building,%20speaking%20to%20two%20purposes%20as%20home%20and%20office.%20Moses%20&%20King%20were%20known%20for%20designing%20churches%20as%20well%20as%20residences,%20which%20may%20help%20to%20explain%20the%20stained%20glass%20installed%20over%20the%20front%20door.%20The%20White%20family%20remained%20at%20427%20Cooper%20Street%20until%20the%201920s.%20After%20the%20death%20of%20James%20White%20in%201902,%20his%20wife%20Margaret%20became%20one%20of%20several%20widows%20heading%20households%20in%20the%20400%20block%20of%20Cooper%20Street.%20Her%20family%20in%20the%20first%20decade%20of%20the%20twentieth%20century%20included%20a%20married%20daughter,%20the%20daughter%E2%80%99s%20husband,%20and%20a%20grandchild.%20A%20Commercial%20Future%20By%20the%201920s,%20suburbanization%20and%20the%20construction%20of%20the%20Delaware%20River%20Bridge%E2%80%94later%20the%20renamed%20the%20Benjamin%20Franklin%20Bridge%E2%80%94were%20changing%20Camden,%20and%20so%20too%20the%20occupants%20and%20fates%20of%20houses%20on%20Cooper%20Street.%20By%20the%20middle%201920s,%20as%20demolition%20made%20way%20for%20the%20bridge%20and%20the%20new%20Plaza%20Hotel%20signaled%20a%20more%20commercial%20future%20for%20Cooper%20Street,%20an%20evolution%20pursued%20intensely%20by%20Camden%20boosters%20and%20real%20estate%20interests.%20The%20house%20at%20427%20Cooper%20Street%20became%20a%20medical%20office%20as%20well%20as%20a%20home%20in%201922%20when%20Mary%20Whites%20sold%20it%20to%20a%20doctor,%20Oscar%20Grumbrecht,%20and%20his%20wife,%20Mary%20(who%20held%20title%20to%20the%20property).%20The%20Grumbrechts%20moved%20again%20to%20another%20house%20on%20Cooper%20Street%20in%20the%20mid-1920s,%20and%20thereafter%20427%20was%20divided%20and%20rented%20to%20tenants.%20As%20Camden%20became%20a%20recorded-music%20mecca%20with%20the%20rise%20of%20RCA-Victor,%20the%20tenants%20included%20a%20World%20War%20I%20veteran%20named%20Edwin%20Wartman%20who%20lived%20at%20427%20Cooper%20from%201929%20to%201931%20while%20working%20as%20a%20Vitaphone%20recording%20system%20operator%20(and%20later%20a%20movie%20projectionist).%20During%20the%20Great%20Depression,%20427%20became%20a%20boarding%20house%20with%20boarders%20and%20lodgers%20including%20factory%20workers,%20waitresses,%20and%20a%20draftsman%20employed%20by%20the%20Works%20Progress%20Administration%20(WPA).%20By%20the%201940s,%20the%20building%20also%20housed%20businesses%20that%20included%20a%20dealer%20in%20hearing%20aids%20and%20a%20real%20estate%20agent,%20and%20in%20the%201950s%20its%20tenants%20include%20a%20lawyer%E2%80%99s%20office.%20By%20the%201970s,%20427%20Cooper%20Street%20reflected%20the%20overall%20decline%20of%20Cooper%20Street%20properties%20and%20appeared%20frequently%20in%20legal%20notices%20for%20sheriff%E2%80%99s%20sales%20to%20recover%20back%20taxes.%20In%202008,%20absentee%20owners%20with%20a%20Florida%20address%20sold%20the%20property%20to%20Rutgers%20University.%20%20A%20renovation%20project%20completed%20in%202011%20joined%20427%20Cooper%20Street%20with%20the%20house%20next%20door%20(429)%20to%20create%20offices%20for%20the%20Rutgers-Camden%20Department%20of%20History%20and%20the%20Department%20of%20Religion%20and%20Philosophy.">Moses & King</a> to design a distinctive home that incorporated a strong statement of Richardsonian Romanesque style with a stone arched window on the first floor but also ornamental touches that could be described as Queen Anne, a style that gained in popularity in the United States following its appearance at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. The residence thus combined two architectural statements in one building, speaking to two purposes as home and office. Moses & King were known for designing churches as well as residences, which may help to explain the stained glass installed over the front door. The White family remained at 427 Cooper Street until the 1920s. After the death of James White in 1902, his wife Margaret became one of several widows heading households in the 400 block of Cooper Street. Her family in the first decade of the twentieth century included a married daughter, the daughter’s husband, and a grandchild. The house they occupied changed in appearance with the addition of an ornamental front porch that obscured the heavy Romanesque arched window of the first floor. A Commercial Future By the 1920s, suburbanization and the construction of the Delaware River Bridge—later the renamed the Benjamin Franklin Bridge—were changing Camden, and so too the occupants and fates of houses on Cooper Street. By the middle 1920s, demolition made way for the bridge and construction of the new Plaza Hotel at Fifth and Cooper Streets signaled a more commercial future for the area around the White family home, an evolution pursued intensely by Camden boosters and real estate interests. The house at 427 Cooper Street became a medical office as well as a home in 1922 when Mary White sold it to a doctor, Oscar Grumbrecht, and his wife, Mary (who held title to the property). After the Grumbrechts moved again to another house on Cooper Street in the mid-1920s, 427 was divided and rented to tenants. As Camden became a recorded-music mecca with the rise of <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20131119042100/https:/sites.google.com/site/cchsrcaorg/home/Research-Library">RCA-Victor</a>, the tenants included a World War I veteran named Edwin Wartman who lived at 427 Cooper from 1929 to 1931 while working as a <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20131119042100/http:/www.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/belknap/exhibit2002/vitaphone.htm">Vitaphone</a> recording system operator (and later a movie projectionist). During the Great Depression, 427 became a boarding house with boarders and lodgers including factory workers, waitresses, and a draftsman employed by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). By the 1940s, the building housed businesses that included a dealer in hearing aids and a real estate agent, and in the 1950s its tenants include a lawyer’s office. By the 1970s, 427 Cooper Street reflected the overall decline of Cooper Street properties and appeared frequently in legal notices for sheriff’s sales to recover back taxes. Finally, in 2008 absentee owners with a Florida address sold the property to Rutgers University. A renovation project completed in 2011 joined 427 Cooper Street with the house next door (<a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/items/show/72" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">429</a>) to create offices for the Rutgers-Camden <a href="https://history.camden.rutgers.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Department of History</a> and the <a href="https://philosophyandreligion.camden.rutgers.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Department of Philosophy and Religion</a>. Associated Individuals For a list of all known residents of 427 Cooper Street, visit the <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15gz3_mGk3FcNl0TPaOZAq6B1CHvOpqRcY7a99xkp_l4/edit?usp=sharing">Cooper Street Residents Database</a> and scroll down to 427. Associated architects/builders <a href="https://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/ar_display.cfm/26260">Moses & King</a>, Philadelphia Sources Camden City Directories, 1840-1940, Camden County Historical Society. Camden County Property Records (FamilySearch.org). Camden and Philadelphia newspapers (Newspapers.com). Dorwart, Jeffery M. Camden County, New Jersey: The Making of a Metropolitan Community, 1926-2000. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2001. Jones, Carmita De Solms. "Thomas W. Dyott Boot-Black, Glass Maker and FInancier." Bulletin of the Pennsylvania Museum (October 1926): 226-34. Lockhart, Bill, et al., <a href="https://sha.org/bottle/pdffiles/Dyottville.pdf">Dyottville Glass Works</a> (pdf). New Jersey Census, 1885-1915, and U.S. Census, 1870-1950 (Ancestry.com). Note on sources: Previous documentation dated the construction of this house as c. 1882 and labeled it the “Isaac Doughten House.” This research updates and corrects the record. 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 427 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 400 Block 427 Cooper Street Architects Attorneys Boarding House Dentists Doctors Extended Family Investment Lumber Philadelphia Queen Anne Real Estate Richardsonian Romanesque Servants Widows https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/files/original/2d498dfb78c6f4708ed8fb1be0a67b81.jpg 6dfb2c8a871b4e2a67041d28eb27e498 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 On the northwest corner of Fifth and Cooper Streets, 429 Cooper Street is among the residences of the late nineteenth century that represent the evolution of the street into one of Camden’s most fashionable addresses and its subsequent transitions following the 1926 completion of the first bridge across the Delaware River to Philadelphia. In its uses over time, the house demonstrates transitions from nineteenth-century trades to real estate development and the practice of medicine in the houses on Cooper Street. In this way it supports the statement of significance of the Cooper Street Historic District for the National Register of Historic Places: “These buildings [in the district] demonstrate the street's change from residential and professional to commercial." Documentation by the City of Camden Division of Planning in 1980 described 429 Cooper Street as “an excellent vernacular working of the Second Empire style [that] contributes to the late nineteenth century quality of Cooper Street with its variety of residential structures.” Architectural style Second Empire vernacular Date of construction c. 1850s-1885 History The northwest corner of Fifth and Cooper Streets has been occupied by a residence since at least 1857, when it was represented on a map of Camden County as part of a row of structures spanning most of the 400 block of Cooper Street. Houses rose rapidly on the north side of Cooper Street for the first time during the late 1840s and early 1850s as heirs of the Cooper family sold their land for development. Among the early owners of the lot at this address was Thomas W. Dyott Jr., a Philadelphia wholesaler of patent medicines who bought the property in 1846 and then the lot next door (<a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/items/show/71" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">427 Cooper Street</a>) in 1852. In business with his father, also named Thomas, Dyott sold remedies such as <a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/exhibits/show/excavation/item/2">Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup</a> for quieting babies and cures for rheumatism, liver ailments, and other maladies. The business had grown to one of the nation's leading purveyors of patent medicine under <a href="https://blog.phillyhistory.org/index.php/2012/01/thomas-w-dyott-snake-oil-soda-water-and-the-perennially-seductive-philadelphia-bottle/">his father</a>, who had immigrated England in 1805, claimed without foundation to be a doctor, and started selling miracle cures. Seeking bottles for his remedies, the elder Dyott also went into the bottle manufacturing business and by the 1820s had a thriving complex of factories in the Kensington section of Philadelphia. That venture grew into a company town called Dyottville but collapsed in bankruptcy after a run on its bank during the panic of 1837. The patent medicine business remained active during the 1850s as T.W. Dyott & Sons. City directories list Thomas Dyott Jr. as a Camden resident from 1855 to 1857 at "Cooper above Fourth" (not "Fifth and Cooper"), suggesting that he and his family lived next door at 427 Cooper Street, not on the corner. When he sold both properties in 1860, the 429 Cooper Street lot included a frame house next occupied by Lewis Wilkins, a livery stable operator. Wilkins, who had moved into Camden from Burlington County in the 1850s, had a good location for a stable in the growing city, near the ferries that crossed to Philadelphia. At 51 years old in 1860, his household at 429 Cooper included his wife, Rebecca; their 20-year-old daughter Katura (Kate); Rebecca’s mother, Katura Moore, and her sister, Emeline Dobbins, a nurse. In a later U.S. Census, Kate was noted as having a “spine disease,” which could explain the presence of a nurse in the family. Wilkins, his immediate family, and various other relatives lived at 429 Cooper Street for twenty years, and during that time Wilkins improved the house in keeping with architectural fashion. In 1869, he added a <a href="https://www.oldhouseonline.com/house-tours/the-mania-for-mansard-roofs/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">mansard roof</a>, a hallmark feature of the French-inspired Second Empire architectural style very popular in the United States during the 1860s and 1870s. In the same year, Second Empire mansards were adopted for a new mansion built nearby by a member of the Cooper family (406 Cooper Street, still standing in the twenty-first century) and for other less grand houses rapidly filling Penn and Linden Streets. Across the river, Philadelphia officials chose the same style for the new <a href="https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/city-hall-philadelphia/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">City Hall</a> then under construction. Renovation Mystery After Rebecca Wilkins died in 1880, Lewis Wilkins at age 70 sold his property to a real estate broker, Joseph J. Read. The experiences of the real estate man had spanned the changing worlds of work and opportunity in the nineteenth century. Born in Camden in 1815, in his youth in South Philadelphia Read learned the craft of coopering—barrel-making—and he practiced this trade in Camden as late as the 1860s. But in the 1860s and 1870s Read also began to buy and renovate houses and at least one office building in Camden, and he amassed enough wealth to also invest in property in Philadelphia and Atlantic City. Established in the real estate business, the former cooper moved to Cooper Street. Read’s purchase of 429 Cooper Street occurred at the start of the greatest takeoff of Camden’s population, which nearly tripled between 1880 and 1920, from about 41,000 to more than 116,000 people. In the early 1880s, residents of Cooper Street sought to distinguish their thoroughfare in this growing city by narrowing the street to create front yard spaces that allowed for gardens, small yards, or front porches. The change in the streetscape prompted a wave of construction of grander, architect-designed houses. For his part, Joseph Read gained approval from the Camden City Council “to alter and change the frame dwelling house at the northwest corner of Fifth and Cooper streets by extending the same to the house line on the north side of said Cooper Street.” Read’s proposed renovation in 1882 raises a question of when – and how – the original frame house at 429 Cooper Street became the brick house that remained standing at 429 Cooper Street in the twenty-first century. The historic building survey conducted in 1980 prior to National Register listing dated the house as c. 1880, consistent with Read’s purchase of the property. But the sources for this report did not include two key pieces of evidence: local newspaper reports that Lewis Wilkins added a mansard roof in 1869 and that Read in 1882 requested to renovate a house that was frame (wood), not brick. The still-standing brick house has both a mansard and a front bay consistent with Read’s 1882 proposal – could it be the same house, further renovated with brick facing by Read, or did he rebuild entirely? There is no answer in the known public record, but by 1885 the Sanborn Insurance Company map for Camden lists only brick houses in the 400 block, and the 1891 map depicts a brick house on this corner of Fifth and Cooper Streets. For Read, a recent widower, 429 Cooper Street became the home of his second marriage, in 1881 to Elizabeth Schellenger (in public records of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century also spelled Schellinger), the widow of a sea captain. Their extended household included Elizabeth’s son William Schellenger, a clerk, and Edward A.Y. Schellenger (known as Ned), who during the 1890s completed medical school at the University of Pennsylvania and returned to Camden to practice. While William moved to the Philadelphia suburbs after his marriage in 1891, Ned remained in the household at Fifth and Cooper. After Joseph Read died in 1898, Ned headed the extended family including his mother, his wife Lillian, their son also named Edward, and their daughter Elizabeth. The family also employed domestic servants and a driver for the doctor; those that can be documented were African Americans: Julia Burse, a 36-year-old widow at the time of the 1900 Census, was born in Maryland. Mary Taylor, who worked in the household in 1910, was also a widow, 61 years old and born in New Jersey. She cooked for the Schellengers for at least a decade. Medical Treatments and Tragedies The house at 429 Cooper Street also served as a medical office for Edward A.Y. Schellenger, adding to Cooper Street’s reputation as a location for medical professionals. Front parlors on the first floors of nineteenth-century homes served well as offices, and the physicians were within walking distance of Camden’s Cooper Hospital. Schellenger specialized in surgery, and in addition to a growing practice served on the Board of Managers of the County Tuberculosis Hospital. While occupying 429 Cooper Street, the Schellenger family confronted medical challenges of their own: their daughter, named Elizabeth after her grandmother, contracted polio in 1913. She lived six years longer, until age 18, when a cold developed into pneumonia and caused her death. The Camden Morning Post noted that “although handicapped by deformities,” Elizabeth took an active part in combatting the <a href="https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/influenza-spanish-flu-pandemic-1918-19/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">influenza epidemic</a> of 1918-19. “She was an accomplished automobile driver, despite her tender years and day after day … she was busy conveying nurses, attendants, patients, and Red Cross workers to and from hospitals.” By the time of Elizabeth’s early death, her father also had succumbed to complications from an illness that was publicly described only as a “serious ailment” that he had treated in others as a surgeon. In 1917, he cited ill health when he resigned his position with the Tuberculosis Hospital. While hospitalized shortly thereafter, he experienced burns from an x-ray that were blamed for a subsequent burst artery that ended his life. He was 47 years old. Office Building The house at Fifth and Cooper Streets remained home for Schellenger’s widow, Lillian, and son Edward until the mid-1920s, but then they joined other prominent Camden families in relocating to suburban Merchantville. Cooper Street was by that time taking on a distinctly more commercial atmosphere as the opening of the Delaware River Bridge (later renamed the Benjamin Franklin Bridge) prompted changes such as the construction of the Plaza Hotel diagonally across the street from the Schellenger home. The Schellengers retained ownership of 429 Cooper Street, but a real estate firm renovated the building into offices and at least one apartment. In 1930, the apartment was rented by a church organist and his family. By 1940, the residential tenants included a German-born Naval draftsman and his family and a second household consisting of a widowed artist and her adult daughter, a secretary. In the 1940s, 429 Cooper Street once again became a location for medical offices, this time for doctors who practiced in Camden but chose to live in the suburbs. Among them was the son of the original Dr. Schellenger, also named Edward. The younger Schellenger, a gynecologist, opened his practice after graduating from Thomas Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. World War II interrupted his career in Camden as he served with the U.S. Army Medical Corps in Africa and the Middle East. While overseas, he met the Army nurse who became his wife, Margaret Clayton; they raised their family of two daughters and a son in Merchantville. The younger Edward Schellenger donated 429 Cooper Street to Rutgers University in 1977. After housing student health services for Rutgers-Camden during the 1990s, the building gained a new purpose in 2011 through a renovation that joined it with adjacent <a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/items/show/71" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">427 Cooper Street</a> to create office spaces for the Rutgers-Camden <a href="https://history.camden.rutgers.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Department of History</a> and the <a href="https://philosophyandreligion.camden.rutgers.edu/">Department of Philosophy and Religion</a>. Associated Individuals For a list of all known occupants of 429 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 429. Sources Camden City Directories, 1840-1940, Camden County Historical Society and Ancestry.com. Camden County Property Records (FamilySearch.org). Camden and Philadelphia newspapers (Newspapers.com and Genealogy Bank). Dorwart, Jeffery M. Camden County, New Jersey: The Making of a Metropolitan Community, 1926-2000. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2001. Jones, Carmita De Solms. "Thomas W. Dyott Boot-Black, Glass Maker and FInancier." Bulletin of the Pennsylvania Museum (October 1926): 226-34. New Jersey Census, 1885-1915, and U.S. Census, 1870-1950 (Ancestry.com). Note on sources: Previous documentation dated the construction of this house as c. 1880 and labeled it the “Joseph J. Read House.” This research updates the record and raises questions about the date of construction. 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 429 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 200s 2010s 400 Block 429 Cooper Street African Americans Apartments Death Doctors Druggists Livery Stable Mansard Merchantville Polio Real Estate Renovations Rutgers-Camden Servants https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/files/original/b10abf82678c25d65658b12871051317.jpg a1f973f83b5728f4de6caf2dca4e53cd 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 401-03 Cooper Street is a contributing structure of the Cooper Street Historic District, listed on the New Jersey and National Registers of Historic Places. Documentation prepared by the Camden Division of Planning in 1980 noted, “In spite of stuccoing and alterations to the door, it remains one of the important visual links between Cooper Street’s pre- and post- Civil War development.” The scale of the house reflects the wealth and status of pioneers in Camden’s lumber industry during the nineteenth century; occupants over time included a prominent banker, a leader of the New Century Club of Philadelphia and the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, a female physician who founded a clinic for underprivileged women and children in West Philadelphia, and a future dean of Rutgers-Camden. In the 1920s the building transitioned to office and apartment use, thus exemplifying one of the Cooper Street Historic District’s stated qualities of significance, “the street's change from residential and professional to commercial." Owned by Rutgers University since the 1970s, the building became home to the Departments of <a href="https://polisci.camden.rutgers.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Political Science</a> and <a href="https://dppa.camden.rutgers.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Public Policy and Public Administration</a>. Architectural style Greek Revival Date of construction 1849-50 History The double-lot residence at Fourth and Cooper Streets, originally the home of a lumber dealer’s family, is a testament to the prominence and prosperity of the lumber industry in nineteenth-century Camden. Lumber yards and sawmills began to populate the Camden riverfront in the 1830s and thrived for decades as the city’s dominant industry. Unlike Philadelphia across the river, Camden had an advantage of undeveloped river flats where rafts of cut timber could be accumulated. Timber came down the Delaware River from northern Pennsylvania and southern New York and filled Camden’s riverfront from Cooper Street north to Cooper’s Point. Lumber entrepreneurs also obtained Pennsylvania white pine after it traveled down the Susquehanna River to Marietta, Pennsylvania, in Lancaster County and to Port Deposit, Maryland. Once in Camden, the timber became the lumber and building products that railroads carried across South Jersey to build newly developing towns. A Business Pioneer The financial success of one of Camden’s lumber dealers, George W. Carpenter, can be seen in his home at 401-03 Cooper Street – a residence double the size of any other built in this block of Cooper Street during its first generation of development. Carpenter bought the adjoining lots in 1849 from an heir of the Cooper family, which had begun to sell land on the north side of Cooper Street for development. The purchase was among sixteen real estate purchases by Carpenter during the period from 1846 to 1859, a pace of investment enabled by his success as a lumber dealer. Carpenter, who was born in Massachusetts, had migrated to New Jersey sometime before 1830, the year he married Susan Heigh in Cumberland County. By 1841, together with a partner he was operating a lumber mill on Front Street near the riverfront. As it rose during late 1849 and early 1850, the new house attracted attention from the Philadelphia Inquirer, which called it "one of the handsomest mansions any where near Philadelphia," and from the Philadelphia Public Ledger, which noted its front facade constructed of Connecticut brownstone. When they moved into their new home in 1850, the Carpenter household consisted of George and Susan Carpenter, their three sons ages 11, 13, and 14, and a sister or other female relative of Susan. The Carpenters added to their holdings in 1854 by purchasing the adjacent lot at <a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/items/show/76" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">405 Cooper Street</a>, which remained undeveloped until its sale to one of their grown sons in 1868. George Carpenter’s business endeavors meanwhile extended from lumber into manufacturing, and he became regarded as “one of the business pioneers of our city,” in the words of the Camden Democrat. By the time of his death in 1870, he was taking an interest in the development of <a href="https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/atlantic-city/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Atlantic City</a> as a member of the Board of Directors of the Camden and Atlantic Railroad Company. His widow, Susan, remained in the Cooper Street house until 1887. Wealth and Activism A family that united two of Camden’s economic foundations – lumber and banking – became the next owners of 401-03 Cooper Street. Wilbur F. Rose, a banker, and Mary Whitlock Rose, the daughter of a lumber merchant, moved into the grandest house on the block from a smaller house across the street (406 Cooper Street) that had been in her family since before their marriage in 1869. By the time of the move in 1888, Wilbur Rose had advanced from clerk to cashier of National State Bank of Camden. The family included two young daughters, 13-year-old Elsie and 10-year-old Mary Caroline, and Mary’s widowed mother, Ann Whitlock. (A son had died in infancy.) At various times the Rose household included other extended family members and Black domestic servants. With the benefits of substantial income and help to run the household, Wilbur and Mary Rose both became active in civic and charitable causes. As Wilbur Rose continued to advance to the position of vice president of the bank, he invested energy in a vast array of Camden business and charitable activities, from directorships with railroads and insurance firms to service on behalf libraries, poverty relief, and child welfare. Mary Rose, known for her interest in literature and the arts, expanded her public activities after two personal losses in 1891: the death of her mother as well as her younger daughter, who succumbed from scarlet fever at the age of 13. In keeping with the usual custom of the time, their funerals were held in the home. During the 1890s, Mary Whitlock Rose became especially prominent in <a href="https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/womens-clubs/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">women’s club circles</a> in Philadelphia and nationally. She ascended to the presidency of the New Century Club in Philadelphia, a group that had formed after the nation’s Centennial in 1876, and she became a vice president of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs. The New Century Club, originally devoted to literature and other cultural pursuits, had become active in progressive reform work by the time of Rose’s leadership. In speeches, Rose promoted the idea that clubs should become increasingly democratic and less defined by social class. She spoke on contemporary issues, including immigration and “The Possibilities of <a href="https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/the-new-woman" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the New Woman</a>.” During this era, the New Century Club’s guests at its clubhouse on Twelfth Street included Susan B. Anthony and Jane Addams, the Chicago reformer who addressed the group on the subject of child labor. Mary Rose’s surviving daughter, Elsie (known in adulthood as Elise Whitlock-Rose), accompanied her on trips to General Federation of Women’s Clubs meetings, and together they toured in Europe. Elise, who was educated at the Springside boarding school in Philadelphia’s Chestnut Hill section, acquired fluency in French and a passion for French culture and history. After her school days she channeled this interest into a series of books about cathedrals and cloisters of France, researched in Europe and published between 1906 and 1914. The death of Mary Whitlock Rose from “a lingering illness” in 1907 left a $50,000 estate to Elise and her father, Wilbur, who remained at 401-03 Cooper Street together. They employed two domestic servants, recorded in the 1910 Census as Black women born in Delaware: Mary Harris, 19, and Rosa Johnson, 64. It was around this time that Elise Whitlock-Rose embarked on her own path of community service. In her late 20s she enrolled in the <a href="https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/womans-medical-college-of-pennsylvania/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania</a>, where she completed her M.D. degree in 1914. With another Woman’s Medical College graduate, Elizabeth F.C. Clark, she opened a clinic in West Philadelphia to serve underprivileged women and children, the Clinic of Notre Dame des Malades (Our Lady of the Sick). The clinic served patients for more than 30 years. Following the outbreak of World War I, which occurred while she was traveling in Europe with her father, Elise also sought to aid France by starting a war relief agency, which she called the Little House of Saint Pantaleon. She revived it in 1939 to help France at the start of World War II. Elise Rose’s career as a physician entailed a move to Philadelphia, where she was joined by her father, who retired from business in 1912, in a home on Twenty-Second Street near Rittenhouse Square. The Rose family’s occupation of 403 Cooper Street came to an end in 1916. Offices and Apartments During the 1920s, 401-03 Cooper Street converted from a family home into physicians’ offices and apartments, a common pattern on Cooper Street during the period of construction of the nearby Delaware River Bridge (later renamed the Benjamin Franklin Bridge), which opened in 1926. Expecting a business boom in Camden, real estate interests promoted Cooper Street as a potential New York-style Fifth Avenue lined with offices and apartment buildings. They bought, renovated, and sold or managed numerous former residences in pursuit of this vision. (It is perhaps during this period of renovations that 401-03 Cooper Street gained its coating of stucco.) The physicians who subsequently owned 403 Cooper Street from the 1920s through the 1960s maintained practices in Camden but primarily lived in suburban Haddonfield. In addition to other doctors’ offices, tenants in the building included a dressmaker, Eva Smith, who lived in one of the apartments from 1929 until at least 1945. Her neighbors over that span of time included schoolteachers, a secretary, a boiler fireman, and a returning World War II veteran. By the 1960s, students at Rutgers University were among the apartment tenants at 401-03 Cooper Street as the university expanded its campus north of Cooper Street through urban renewal demolitions in 1962-64. During this period of significant growth for Rutgers-Camden, one of 401-03 Cooper’s apartment dwellers was student <a href="https://mmarsh.camden.rutgers.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Margaret Marsh</a>, Class of 1967. Later earning graduate degrees at Rutgers and becoming a renowned scholar of the histories of women, gender, and medicine, Marsh returned to Rutgers-Camden in 1998 as Dean and later Executive Dean of the Rutgers-Camden Faculty of Arts and Sciences. She also served as Chancellor - twice, from 2007 to 2009 and from 2020 to 2021 - on an interim basis. By the late 1970s Rutgers University owned 401-03 Cooper Street, which became home to the Departments of <a href="https://polisci.camden.rutgers.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Political Science</a> and <a href="https://dppa.camden.rutgers.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Public Policy and Administration</a>. Associated Individuals For list of known occupants of 401-03 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 403. Sources Camden and Philadelphia Newspapers (Newspapers.com and Genealogy Bank). Camden City Directories (Camden County Historical Society and Ancestry.com). Camden County Property Records. New Jersey State Census, 1885-1915, U.S. Census, 1850-1950 (Ancestry.com). Prowell, George R. The History of Camden County, New Jersey. Philadelphia: L.J. Richards & Co., 1886. Note on sources: Previous documentation estimated the construction date of this house as 1850. The revised date 1849-50 is based on the following account published in the Philadelphia Inquirer on September 28, 1849: "We observe with pleasure that within the last few months a very active spirit of improvement has been evident in Camden. On Cooper street, one of the handsomest mansions any where near Philadelphia, has been erected by Mr. George Alexander Carpenter, of the Flour and Saw Mills, Camden. It is now nearly completed, under the superintendence of Mr. [illegible] Hall, contractor -- Mr. J.W. Brister, bricklayer, Mr. Simpson, stone mason, and Mr. S. Sexton, cementer and plaster. The rooms of the different stories vary from 10 to 15 in height. Mr. Hoxie, we learn, was the architect." A subsequent article in the Philadelphia Public Ledger, January 26, 1850, noted the house was "nearly finished." This article also described the materials: "Its front, door and window frames are constructed of Connecticut borwn stone of a superior quality and dimensions." Research by Charlene Mires Posted by Charlene Mires Send corrections to cmires@camden.rutgers.edu Associated architects/builders Attributed to <a href="https://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/ar_display.cfm/51793" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Joseph C. Hoxie</a> (Philadelphia Inquirer, September 28, 1849) 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 401-03 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 200s 2010s 400 Block Activism Banking Death Doctors Dressmakers Greek Revival Haddonfield Lumber Renovations Rutgers-Camden Scarlet Fever Servants Teachers Women's Clubs https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/files/original/1a58545206a4032c8a0b31422adb830d.jpg b4d8fa46048454ef5ab9b406158ecd92 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 Early twentieth-century photograph, Camden County Historical Society. Significance 423 Cooper Street was the site of a contributing structure of the Cooper Street Historic District, which is listed on the New Jersey and National Registers of Historic Places. The district is defined as representing broad patterns of American history, including: "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." The latter transition was well illustrated by 423 Cooper Street, which began as a family home then became a funeral home from the 1920s through the 1960s. The house was demolished in the early 1990s. Date of construction c. 1847, renovated 1875. History The house that stood at 423 Cooper Street for nearly 150 years was among the first houses built on the north side of Cooper Street as Cooper family heirs sold their land for development. When they began to divide their land into building lots in the 1840s, Camden was seeking new status as the seat of government for newly designated Camden County, formed from Gloucester County in 1844. Building Lives in Camden Jesse Townsend and his wife, Elizabeth, came to Camden in 1847, two years after they were married at the Byberry Friends Meeting in the rural northern reaches of Philadelphia. They had one infant daughter when Jesse took a job as a clerk at the State Bank of Camden, one of the institutions that marked the emergence of Camden as a city in its own right, not merely a satellite of Philadelphia across the river. The Townsends purchased the 423 Cooper Street lot and in their new house, likely a Greek Revival brick rowhouse like others in the 400 block, their family grew during the 1850s to include five children – four girls and a boy – in addition to Elizabeth Townsend’s mother, Mary Wilson. Jesse Townsend ascended to cashier of the bank. When he also entered into partnership in a flour and grain business, his business partner Caleb Parry also lived with the family for a time. In 1862, the Townsend family sold the house and moved to 215 Cooper Street, closer to the bank at Second and Market Streets. New owners who lived in Woodbury rented out the house for the rest of that decade. Notably, in 1870 the tenants of the house included Richard and Mary Esterbrook, immigrants from England. Richard Esterbrook was the founder of the Esterbrook Steel Pen Company, founded in Camden in 1858 and on its way to becoming one of the world’s leading producers of steel pen nibs. The house underwent a major renovation by its next owner, Frederick Rex, a bank clerk in his 20s who later became a prominent attorney. When advertised for sale by its previous owners from Woodbury, the house was described as having “six chambers, and bath room, parlor, dining room and kitchen; water and gas in the house which is in good order.” Rex apparently saw room for improvement and contracted with a builder in 1875 to “tear down, build up, and repair” the 30-year-old rowhouse. The result was a home that stood out from others on the block with Italianate details. Rex then sold the house to the family who also lived there with him, feed and flour dealer Charles C. Reeves, his wife Elizabeth, and their two children. Hardware and Prosperity A sheriff’s sale of 423 Cooper Street in 1886 opened more than three decades of occupancy by members of a prominent Camden retail family, William and Clara Fredericks and their daughter, Edna, born the same year they moved into the house. William Fredericks, born in Camden in 1854, managed the hardware store that his father, Harry, had founded in the 1850s. The store carried the goods that helped to build the growing city – window sashes, doors, and building supplies. While the business prospered, the elder Fredericks also organized the Camden Merritts baseball team, which lasted just a year (1883) but started the career of pitcher William (Kid) Gleason, who later played for the Baltimore Orioles, the Detroit Tigers, and Philadelphia Nationals. When the Fredericks family moved into 423 Cooper Street, the Camden Daily Telegram noted that their “handsome new residence” was being “fitted up in an elegant manner.” The Fredericks family displayed other signs of affluence while living at this address, including the employment of domestic servants even though they remained a small family of three. When Edna Fredericks reached adulthood, at age 20 in 1906 she sailed with relatives to Europe for a summer tour. The family also spent summers at the Jersey Shore, favoring Atlantic City. In 1916, approaching retirement from business, Fredericks put the house up for sale, advertising it as a “three-story brick house in one of the finest residential sections of Camden.” It offered “twelve rooms and handsome tiled bathroom; hardwood floors; pier and mantle mirrors; crystal chandelier; gas and coal ranges, cemented cellars; large yard and side entrance; front and side porches.” After a lifetime in Camden, in 1918 Fredericks retired and the family moved to an apartment in West Philadelphia. Funeral Home The next long-term occupant of 423 Cooper Street reflected the transition of the thoroughfare to commercial uses during the 1920s. The transition, promoted by Camden real estate interests, included conversion of many former residences into offices or apartment buildings. The redevelopment activity accompanied construction of the Delaware River Bridge, later renamed the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, which opened in 1926. Beginning in 1923, 423 Cooper Street became the residence and funeral home of Charles W. Hiskey, who was assisted in the business by his wife, Matilda. Previously on Sixth Street, the Hiskeys described their new location as a “modern funeral home.” Charles Hiskey developed an extensive network of acquaintances that could be expected to aid the business as he joined various lodges, the Masons, the Kiwanis Club, and other organizations. Matilda Hiskey was a lifelong member of the First Methodist Church. The funeral home remained in operation until 1961, when Charles Hiskey died, five years after his wife. Offices and Demolition A real estate firm next acquired the building and leased to office tenants, including physicians. As an office building, 423 Cooper Street changed hands several times during the 1960s and 1970s, then became the property of Rutgers University in 1984. When surveyed for inclusion in the Cooper Street Historic District in 1985, the building was described as “a highly intact example of one of the most prevalent styles of architecture on Cooper Street” and “a significant contributor to the heritage of the streetscape.” The building was demolished in the early 1990s, creating a vacant lot that remained three decades later. Associated Individuals For a list of known residents of 423 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 423. Sources Camden and Philadelphia Newspapers (Newspapers.com and Genealogy Bank). Camden City Directories (Camden County Historical Society and Ancestry.com). Camden County Property Records. Cooper Street Historic District, National Register Nomination, U.S. Department of Interior. New Jersey State Census, 1855-1915, and U.S. Census, 1850-1950 (Ancestry.com). Prowell, George R. The History of Camden County, New Jersey. Philadelphia: L.J. Richards & Co., 1886. 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 423 Cooper Street Description An account of the resource Vacant lot, site of demolished contributing structure, Cooper Street Historic District. 1840s 1850s 1860s 1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 400 Block 423 Cooper Street Banking Baseball Demolition Doctors Esterbrook Steel Pen Company Funeral Homes Greek Revival Hardware Dealers Philadelphia Quakers Renovations Rutgers-Camden Woodbury