Cooper Street, East of Fourth, Camden, NJ from a postcard.
Cooper Street is one of the oldest streets in Camden, and is named after the Cooper family. William Cooper was one of the first settlers in this part of New Jersey. Camden was known as Cooper's Ferries for many years prior to the city being incorporated in 1828.
The curb line of Cooper Street, from Front Street to the tracks of the Camden & Atlantic Railroad Company, were moved twelve feet towards the center, and the street paved with Belgian blocks in 1881. In 1927 the curb lines were moved back twelve feet from 4th Street to 9th Street. This improvement was completed in September of 1927.
Cooper Street runs from the waterfront east to 9th Street, with a short block of homes and businesses still standing above 11th Street. Prior to the construction of Interstate Route I-676, Cooper Street ran all the way to 12th Street. Cooper Street was for many years one of the most prestigious addresses in Camden, and many homes of historic significance, due to both the residents and the architects of said homes, were and still are on Cooper Street.
The "beginning of the end" for Cooper Street came in the early 1920s, when three mansions were torn down to make room for the Walt Whitman Hotel. On June 30, 1940 all the homes on the south side of the 900 block were destroyed when the R.M. Hollingshead chemical factory, which occupied most of the block, fronting on 9th and on Market Streets, exploded and burned to the ground.
Little known outside of East Camden is the "other" Cooper Street, which runs between North 19th and East State Street. This short street only has one single family home and a block of 13 row homes.
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Unit Block Cooper Street
Unit Block of Cooper Street — Occupants
Noted occupants of the unit block.
10 Cooper Street
10 Cooper Street — Unit Block of Cooper Street — Occupants
year↕
name↕
1858–1964
Esterbrook Pen Company
1964–1971
RCA Building 16 (formerly Esterbrook)
43 Cooper Street
43 Cooper Street — Unit Block of Cooper Street — Occupants
year↕
name↕
1880s–1900s
Rev. William H. Burrell
100 Block Cooper Street
100 Block of Cooper Street — Occupants
Noted occupants of the 100 block.
106 Cooper Street
106 Cooper Street — 100 Block of Cooper Street — Occupants
year↕
name↕
1880s–1890s
William H. Allen
122 Cooper Street
122 Cooper Street — 100 Block of Cooper Street — Occupants
year↕
name↕
—
Dr. Samuel Harris
1872
The Dorcas Society
126 Cooper Street
126 Cooper Street — 100 Block of Cooper Street — Occupants
year↕
name↕
1787–1882
William Abels
200 Block Cooper Street
200 Block of Cooper Street — Occupants
Noted occupants of the 200 block.
200 Cooper Street
200 Cooper Street — 200 Block of Cooper Street — Occupants
year↕
name↕
—
The Edward Sharp House
201 Cooper Street
201 Cooper Street — 200 Block of Cooper Street — Occupants
year↕
name↕
1933
C.R. Finney
mid-late 1930s
Turin Grotto
1933
John Lynch Saloon
1947
Palace Restaurant
204 Cooper Street
204 Cooper Street — 200 Block of Cooper Street — Occupants
year↕
name↕
1947
College of South Jersey Law School
205 Cooper Street
205 Cooper Street — 200 Block of Cooper Street — Occupants
year↕
name↕
1880s–1900s
Richard Pancoast
206 Cooper Street
206 Cooper Street — 200 Block of Cooper Street — Occupants
year↕
name↕
1930s–1940s
Henry S. Ford
209 Cooper Street
209 Cooper Street — 200 Block of Cooper Street — Occupants
year↕
name↕
1896–1901
Woman's Club of Camden
210 Cooper Street
210 Cooper Street — 200 Block of Cooper Street — Occupants
year↕
name↕
1920s–1930s
Charlotte C. French
214 Cooper Street
214 Cooper Street — 200 Block of Cooper Street — Occupants
year↕
name↕
1900s–1910s
Captain John B. Adams & Family (John B. & Phoebe Adams, Clarence Adams)
1920s–1932
George W. Jessup
215 Cooper Street
215 Cooper Street — 200 Block of Cooper Street — Occupants
year↕
name↕
1890s–1920s
Dr. Dowling Benjamin & Family (Dr. Dowling & Sarah Benjamin, Ada Benjamin, Helen Benjamin)
218–222 Cooper Street
218–222 Cooper Street — 200 Block of Cooper Street — Occupants
year↕
name↕
—
The Chalcar Apartments
Architects
Byron H. Edwards & Alfred Green
1940s–1950
Edward A. 'Dick' Malan
1955
Manchester Laundry & Dry Cleaning Co., Inc. (220 Cooper)
220 Cooper Street
220 Cooper Street — 200 Block of Cooper Street — Occupants
year↕
name↕
1890s
Samuel Smith (Ice)
228 Cooper Street
228 Cooper Street — 200 Block of Cooper Street — Occupants
year↕
name↕
1877–1888
Nathan F. Cowan Family (Nathan & Sallie Ann Cowan, William, Edgar, Herbert Cowan)
232 Cooper Street
232 Cooper Street — 200 Block of Cooper Street — Occupants
year↕
name↕
1910s–1920s
Frank J. Hineline
1910s–1920s
Ludwig Kind
1910s–1920s
Charles H. Greer
1910s–1920s
William MacFarland
1910s
Philip Wilson
300 Block Cooper Street
300 Block of Cooper Street — Occupants
City directory records and historical notes.
300 Cooper Street
300 Cooper Street — 300 Block of Cooper Street — Occupants
year↕
name↕
1882–1900s
Dr. William A. Davis
303 Cooper Street
303 Cooper Street — 300 Block of Cooper Street — Occupants
year↕
name↕
1933–1947
Dr. Max Ruttenberg
305 Cooper Street
305 Cooper Street — 300 Block of Cooper Street — Occupants
year↕
name↕
1885–1959
Dr. H. Genet Taylor & Family
1940s–1950
Agnes Draper
306 Cooper Street
306 Cooper Street — 300 Block of Cooper Street — Occupants
year↕
name↕
1930s–1945
Emma Hyland
311 Cooper Street
311 Cooper Street — 300 Block of Cooper Street — Occupants
Technician Fourth Class Isaac Z. Gosling (1911–1942) was born in Camden to Boston and Elizabeth Gosling; the family had moved to 118 North 23rd Street by September 1918. Called to service in March 1941, he died of pneumonia in England on September 3, 1942 while serving with the 85th Quartermaster Depot Supply Company, and was buried at Beverly National Cemetery in 1949.
Robert Hartmann (1876–1967), son of cigar manufacturer Frank J. Hartmann Sr., grew up in Camden's labor movement and was elected the first president of the Camden County Central Labor Union when it was formed in 1908. The 1920 Census found him and his family at 16 North 23rd Street in East Camden.
Physician, pharmacist, and Camden's first Medical Inspector; later Health Director and chief school physician who shaped public-school health care in Camden for a generation.
Private Anthony J. Flemming (1913–1944) of Camden, NJ, served in Company E, 47th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division, and was killed in action on November 25, 1944, during the assault on the Siegfried Line in Germany. He was awarded the Purple Heart.
Annals of Camden No 3 - Old Ferries - Camden NJ Download In this age of inventions, improvements and ever-changing modes of transportation, the ferry boat is still an important factor in carrying the traveller across that "goodly and noble" river which forms the boundary between the two Quaker Colonies of New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Gloria Bonilla-Santiago is the founder of Camden's LEAP Academy, a charter school that currently operates in the former Elks' Lodge building at North 7th Street and Cooper Street . Gloria Bonilla-Santiago
Abraham Lincoln James, commonly known as A. L. James or A. Lincoln James, was a career officer with the Camden Police Department, serving for 40 years.
Theodore T. Kausel was born in New York on October 25, 1885. By 1919, he resided in Camden, New Jersey, where he served as superintendent of the Castle Kid Company, one of the city's leather manufacturing businesses.
Carpenter Street was a narrow residential street in North Camden, running from North 8th Street to Cooper Street. Most of it was destroyed in the 1940 Hollingshead Factory fire and later razed for Interstate 676; today only the 800 block remains.
Birch Street once ran from Front Street through Ninth Street in North Camden. Over the years, the Delaware River Bridge, the Port Authority, and the Northgate Apartment Buildings took most of the street off the map.
Ambler Street was a small street in South Camden that ran from Cooper Street north to Penn Street. There were still homes on Ambler Street as late as 1924, but no occupied addresses by 1947.
Thirtieth Street runs from the Delaware River south, across River Road to the Pavonia railroad switching yard, then to Westfield Avenue and on to Federal Street, and to the intersection of Line Street and Beacon Avenue, just above Waldorf Street. It is North 30th Street above Federal and South 30th below.
Bailey Street runs through North Camden from the 200 block near Cooper Street north to the 800 block. It appears to be named for real estate developer William T. Bailey, who built rows of homes along State, Grant, Bailey, and York Streets in the late 19th century.
Richman Alley, documented in the 1946 Camden City Directory, was situated "from Cooper to Carpenter , East of North 11th ." Regrettably, this area, as depicted in the maps below, was cleared to facilitate the construction of Interstate 676.
Reprinted from the series of stories of Camden's earlier days, under the title Sixty Years in Camden County - Gosh! by Will Paul, appearing in The Community news, of Merchantville, NJ.
Baird Boulevard (originally Baird Avenue) runs diagonally through the Parkside and East Camden neighborhoods, named for Camden businessman and U.S. Senator David Baird Sr. It begins at Kaighn Avenue, crosses the Cooper River and Admiral Wilson Boulevard, and terminates at the intersection of Federal Street and 27th Street in East Camden.
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.
Howard Carrow was born on September 30, 1860, in Camden, Kent County, Delaware, to Edward and Margaret Carrow. His ancestors, of Scotch-Irish and English descent, were primarily farmers who had lived in Maryland and Delaware for several generations.
Incorporated in 1828, the progress and possibilities of Camden have far exceeded the expectations of the Founders and Incorporators. The year 1928 witnessed the celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of the incorporation of Camden as a city.
Leon Edgar Todd Sr. was born in Camden NJ on November 22, 1893. He operated his real estate agency for many years in Camden at 2623 Westfield Avenue , a building designed by the Camden architectural firm of Lackey & Hettel .
1123 Broadway (Broadway and Sycamore Street), Camden, NJ Established in 1885, the Camden National Bank opened at 259 Kaighn Avenue on August 13, 1885. Zophar C. Howell was the first President.
2nd Street extends north-south between Front Street and 3rd Street, running parallel to the Delaware River until Mechanic Street. In the early 1970s, several buildings were cleared on the east side of North 2nd Street below Mickle Street to make way for the Royal Court townhomes and Mickle Tower senior citizens apartment building.
Royden Street , which was improperly spelled on the city plan, was named in honor of William Royden, who in 1681-82 became the owner of all the land between the present Cooper Street and Line Street .
WILLIAM C. AITKEN was born around 1846. He first came to America in 1869. He moved to Camden in the early 1880s. He was active as a builder in the latter part of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Vincent Ariel Tydeman was born in New Jersey on August 24, 1883, to Edmund and Sarah Tydeman, who emigrated from England to the U.S. in 1878 with their nine children. The Tydemans welcomed another child, Florence, just before the 1880 census.
Benson Street, in South Camden, was named for John J. Benson, an agent of the Camden and Amboy Railroad who played a key role in developing the Stevens’ lands into building lots.
Frank F. Neutze Sr., born on December 22, 1894, in Camden, New Jersey, to Harry and Mary Neutze, was part of the Ferdinand Neutze family, known for their diverse professional involvements in Camden during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Fire Watch magazine honors Fr. Chuck Mayo of Ladder Co. 1 for saving a fellow firefighter from falling off an icy roof at 513 Cooper Street on January 2, 1977.
Death notice of Arthur C. Batten, 60, of 1132 North 22nd Street, Camden; a Camden police and fire association member and past captain of the Fifth and Arch Streets Rescue Squad.
Obituary of Capt. Arthur C. Batten of 1132 North 22nd Street, retired Acting Battalion Chief of the Camden Fire Department and former captain of the department's Rescue Squad, who died at Cooper Hospital on April 18, 1972 after 42 years of service.
A Camden Courier-Post retrospective on the origins of organized labor in Camden, centering on Peter J. McGuire and on the father-and-son cigarmakers Frank and Robert Hartmann, whose Third and Arch Streets factory housed the movement's earliest meetings. Robert Hartmann was elected first president of the Camden County Central Labor Union in 1908.
William Dickinson, 68, of 931 Cooper Street, died at Cooper Hospital. A lifelong Camden resident, he had operated a garage and automobile repair business for 50 years. Services held at the Murray Funeral Home, 408 Cooper Street.
By Ronald G. Van Tine Restrictions on nightlong parking on principal streets in the business district will be tried out early next year as a major step in a campaign to make Camden a cleaner city in which to live and work.
Howard A. Groth of 242 South 32nd Street, a Camden resident of 40 years and a member of Camden Lodge 15 F&AM, died in West Jersey Hospital in April 1953.
Mayor Brunner called a July 1950 conference to coordinate city departments in clearing high grass and weeds from Camden — a campaign during which crews uncovered and destroyed more than 200 wild marijuana plants on a city lot at Chelton Avenue and Arlington Street.
Mr. and Mrs. William Dickinson of 931 Cooper Street announce the engagement of their daughter, Miss M. Elizabeth Dickinson, to Leighton J. Heller, a Dickinson College Law graduate recently discharged from U.S. Army service in India.
Camden Public Safety Commissioner Mary W. Kobus announced in December 1940 that her appointment of 22 patrolmen and 10 firemen had restored the public safety department to 1938 strength, and said she would seek money for more officers because of defense needs; John Gryckiewicz of 810 North Front Street was among the fire appointees.
