Chew Court

Chew Court is a very small street that ran north from the 400 block of Mount Vernon Street, accessible through an arch between 407 and 409 Mount Vernon Street. It got its name from William J. “Billy” Chew, who owned a saloon nearby. Chew Court first appeared in City Directories in 1871. As best can be told, there were only two buildings that ever had a Chew Court address, and oddly enough, they were occupied by Smith and Jones—the Louis Smith family in No. 1, and the William Jones clan in No. 2.

The Christopher A. Bergen School, named for prominent Camden lawyer Christopher Augustus Bergen, which opened in the fall of 1891, was built on the north side of the 400 block of Mount Vernon Street, near Chew Court.

The street has listings in the 1887–1888, 1888–1889, and 1890–1891 City Directories, and Smith and Jones were still living in the same houses when the census was taken in 1900. Sometime after the 1890 Directory was compiled, No. 1 Chew’s Court was renumbered as 1016, and No. 2 Chew’s Court became 1014.

By the time the 1904 City Directory was compiled, both families had left Chew Court. The court was in the local papers quite a bit in the 1890s and 1900s, as several arrests for lottery law violations, known as “policy” and later as the “numbers racket,” took place on Chew Court.

In September of 1932, Courier-Post reporter E. Allen Hughes wrote a three-part series of articles about the small streets, alleys, courts and places of Camden, including Chew Court. No homes or businesses had addresses on Chew Court in the 1924 or 1947 Camden City Directories. All trace of Chew Court was obliterated when the Ulysses S. Wiggins School was built.