Edward N. Cohn
Edward N. Cohn was born in 1832. On the 1870 U.S. Census, he reported his birthplace as Bohemia, while in the 1880 Census he listed it as Germany. It is likely he was born in a region that is now part of the Czech Republic.
Cohn served in the Civil War as a sergeant in Company C of the 34th New Jersey Regiment from January 17, 1865, to January 16, 1866, and was mustered out in Mobile, Alabama.
By 1870, he was living in Camden's North Ward with his wife, Adeline, who was born in Pennsylvania. They had a three-year-old daughter, Adelia. At the time, Cohn was working in the lumber business and doing well enough to employ a live-in domestic. He had also begun building houses.
When the 1880 Census was taken, Cohn was living in Bordentown, New Jersey, and working in the retail lumber trade. His business remained prosperous, and the family continued to employ domestic help. Throughout this period and into the 1880s, Cohn remained active in construction.
In 1886, George Reeser Prowell wrote of Edward N. Cohn, in his book History of Camden County, New Jersey:
Among the builders of Camden are several who have erected five or six hundred houses each. The heaviest operators are undoubtedly Cohn & Roberts, Wilson Ernst, and George Holl. Fine examples of the work of the firm first named are to be seen on Front and Point Streets, between Cooper and Linden. Mr. E. N. Cohn commenced building in 1866, erecting in that year 12 houses on Pearl Street. He then continued putting up blocks and separate structures, operating alone and in conjunction with Charles B. Richard and Asa R. Cox, and building not less than one hundred and fifty houses. He also erected the Pfeil and Galtz building, which was burned. In 1882 he formed a partnership with Joseph E. Roberts, who, individually, had built about two hundred houses, and as a firm they have since constructed at least four-hundred and fifty dwellings, to which line of building they devote themselves exclusively.
By 1887, Edward N. Cohn had returned to Camden, where his family lived at the corner of 8th and Line Streets until 1889. In 1888, he began construction on a mansion at North 8th and Cooper Streets. The 1890 Camden City Directory lists the Cohn family at 804 Cooper Street, then one of the city's most prestigious addresses. Edward Cohn died on November 9, 1890.
As noted earlier, Cohn had partnered with Joseph E. Roberts, president of the West Jersey Railroad Company, and later with George Holl. The firm of Roberts and Cohn operated from 105 Market Street. Cohn purchased land from John F. Starr Jr. in North Camden, and with Roberts and Holl, developed numerous two- and three-story row houses and frame houses from Cooper's Point to Pearl Street. These homes were sold or rented to working-class families.
Cohn also invested in property near the Liberty Park railroad station, where he built similar housing along Liberty Street, Mechanic Street, Atlantic Avenue, and Kaighn Avenue between Haddon Avenue and Mount Ephraim Avenue.
Cohn Alley—running west from Haddon Avenue between Kaighn Avenue and Liberty Street—was named in his honor.
