Tag: Francis W. Ayer

The religious history of Camden, NJ, from George Reeser Prowell’s History of Camden County, New Jersey, 1886

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. He built rows of homes on Cooper Street between 9th and 11th Streets. Many of these homes were destroyed in the 1940 Hollingshead fire. He also built a row of homes on Seventh street at Woodland Avenue. At the time of the 1920 Census he made his home with wife Elizabeth at 205 Pearl Street. This home was taken in late 1923 or early 1924 to make way for the Delaware River (Ben Franklin) Bridge.

William C. Aitken later made his home at 421 Penn Street in Camden, which is now part of the Rutgers University campus. He lived very near to advertising magnate F. Wayland Ayer.

William C. Aitken died on February 14, 1933. He was survived by four sons and two daughters, nine children, and two great grandchildren. His grandson, Richard Knight Aitken, died while serving with the United States Army in Louisiana on February 17, 1943.

, where he worked as a clerk in a store. He was then a lodger in the home of Frederic Sohn, at 489 York Avenue. He married around 1881.