Camden Beer


The Camden County Beverage Co., Fillmore & Bulson Streets, Camden, New Jersey

Camden’s brewery at Fillmore and Bulson Streets was built in 1904 by Joseph Baumgartner. The firm was known as the Camden City Brewery Incorporated until it was acquired by Frederick A. Poth, and operated by F.A. Poth & Sons Inc., a Philadelphia based brewery, in 1910. The plant was then modernized to current standards of the time. The firm was operated by F. A. Poth & Sons Incorporated of New Jersey before Prohibition.

During the 1920s the brewery came under the control of Philadelphia based bootlegger Mickey Duffy, and was a major source of revenue for him until his murder in 1931. Another crime figure, Edgar “Blondy” Wallace, had an interest in the brewery but apparently was out of the picture by the fall of 1934.

When Prohibition was repealed, the brewery went back into the production of legal beer. The new ownership still traded as the Camden County Beverage Company, however. Fred A. Martin was the Company’s President for many years after the 1933 change in ownership.


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