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Camden
and Mickle Street: A Cultural History
by Paul W. Schopp
The
city of Camden, New Jersey, arose as a result of its strategic location across
the Delaware River from Philadelphia, the largest port city in America during
the British colonial period. An
examination of even modern local maps shows South Jersey’s historic roads all
leading to Camden and its ferry terminals, much like the spokes on a
wheel. These ferries provided critical
intercourse between Philadelphia, West Jersey, and, ultimately, those traveling
between points north, south, or west.
By 1820, five different ferries operated between Camden and
Philadelphia. The establishment of
steam sawmills along the Delaware River’s Jersey shoreline, beginning in the
1820s, spurred development, and around each mill a small village grew to house
the workers. When the New Jersey
legislature simultaneously created Camden Township and incorporated the City of
Camden in 1828, the place was little more than a series of unconnected nascent
settlements.
Seven
years later, in January 1835, the first regularly scheduled Camden & Amboy
Railroad and Transportation Company passenger train arrived in Camden. The railroad and its managers, primarily
Edwin and Robert Stevens, had purchased large tracts of vacant land in Camden
on which to erect shop buildings, warehouses, a hotel, stables and a station;
other tracts served as investments and would be used to foster
development. The company’s railroad
tracks were laid on Bridge Street, a wide thoroughfare first laid out by real
estate promoter Edward Sharp in 1820 for access to his well-planned, but never
constructed bridge across the Delaware River.
In 1838, the management of the Camden & Amboy Railroad and
Transportation Company proposed a new street in Camden called Mickle Street,
located one block south of the railroad’s right-of-way on Bridge Street. The 66-foot-wide street was named for Capt.
John W. Mickle, one of the railroad company’s staunchest supporters in Camden,
and was officially blazed through the Camden landscape on July 10, 1838. It ran for about a mile from the Delaware
River to Seventh Street, and served to open up additional building lots owned
by the Stevens brothers. It also
relieved traffic that had formerly used Bridge Street prior to the railroad’s
construction.
Building
efforts along Mickle Street did not begin until 1845, when a set of four frame,
semi-detached, “suburban villa” style houses were erected, including the one
that would become Walt Whitman’s home.
James C. Sidney, on his 1851 Map
of the City of Camden New Jersey, shows a total of eighteen buildings along
the south side of Mickle Street. Only
three residents are identified on Sidney’s map, the first detailed cartographic
effort to depict all of Camden as it existed at that time. Located midway between Third and Fourth
streets on the south side of Mickle Street was Sidney's rented residence. This was the same house that Whitman would
later own.
During the second half of the nineteenth
century, Mickle Street became lined with stately row and semi-detached brick
homes. An 1853 Camden City ordinance
prohibited construction of framed structures and allowed only brick and stone
buildings to be erected in Camden.
Prompted by fire concerns, this action caused Camden building activities
to slow, due to the increased costs involved in masonry structures. Three years later, on March 15, 1856, the
tragic burning of the Camden ferryboat New
Jersey and the loss of 48 lives caused anxiety among those who worked in
Philadelphia but chose to live in suburban Camden. Some shuttered their homes, placed “For Sale or Rent” signs
outside, and returned to the Quaker City, phobic over making two ferry
crossings daily. Population growth
slowed until prospective residents again felt comfortable again with river
crossing accommodations. A year after
the New Jersey conflagration, the
U.S. entered a full financial depression that began developing in 1854 and did
not let up until 1859.
As Camden emerged along with the rest of
the nation from that hard-hitting financial depression, the first five blocks
of Mickle Street, from the Delaware River to 6th Street, had reached
a level of mature development. Eight
families resided between the Delaware River and 2nd Street; the next
block, to 3rd Street, contained fifteen families; between 3rd
and 4th Street were nineteen families; and ten each were in the
blocks ending at 5th and 6th Street. It was a street with a diverse mixture of
social classes, and thus represented a cross-section of America. Intelligentsia commingling with shoemakers;
artistic men and women and professionals residing in the shadow of tradesmen
and railroaders; and the children of merchants and managers playing with those
of common laborers wove a colorful human tapestry along Mickle Street. A sampling of occupations among the
residents included carter, carpenters and painters, railroad engineers,
firemen, conductors, switch tender, and baggagemaster, hostlers, seamen, pilot,
trunk maker, grocers, brokers, traders, sugarmaker, butcher and poulterer. Merchants included a jeweler, a coal and
wood dealer, a barkeeper, the owner of a planing mill, and a furrier. Those possessing a higher level of skill
included a machinist, sailmaker, an accountant, and lithographers. Representing the arts community was an
engraver on stone (for lithographic printing), a silversmith, and an
architect.
Two of the people residing on Mickle Street
in 1859 require further mention. Born
in the Canton of Berne, Switzerland, during 1808, Frederick Bourquin immigrated
to the United States in 1817. He
initially settled in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, but soon relocated to New York
City. Bourquin introduced lithography
to America and assisted in producing printing plates for John Audubon’s famous
“Birds of America.” After extolling the
virtues of lithography to those in Gotham, Bourquin moved to Philadelphia, were
he obtained the foreman’s position in Peter S. Duval’s printing shop. Skilled in transferring artwork directly to
lithographic stone, Bourquin received recognition for his work from the
Franklin Institute in 1847. He was
fascinated with the anastatic printing process, a type of lithography,
introduced to the U.S. by John Jay Smith and his son, Robert Pearsall
Smith. There is some suggestion that
Bourquin collaborated with the Smith firm in some projects, and Bourquin sought
to improve the Smith printing process.
Working with Duval, Bourquin perfected “zincography” in America during
1849. Zinc plates were adaptable to the rotary steam power press, which was
first installed by Duval in his Philadelphia lithographic establishment. In 1851, Frederick Bourquin removed his
residence to Camden, contracting to have a house erected at 5th and
Mickle streets.
The other notable personage, residing at 330
Mickle Street, was Stephen Decatur Button, a successful architect of fine
reputation. Born in Preston,
Connecticut in 1813, Button apprenticed for five years as a carpenter, and then
moved to New York City where he obtained a position with architect George
Purvis. After spending two years in
Gotham City, Button moved to Hoboken and worked independently for ten years as
an architect. He relocated to the south
for several years before coming to Philadelphia in 1848 and forming a
partnership with his brother-in-law.
After the disastrous 1878 Cape May, New Jersey, fire, it was Button who
drafted plans for many of the replacement buildings which still stand
today. He received high praise for many
of his building designs, especially his schools and churches. He also specialized in erecting governmental
asylums, hospitals and almshouses, having designed them for Camden County,
Gloucester County, Cape May County, Delaware State and New Castle County in
Delaware, and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
During the Civil War, Camden came alive
with commerce and industry. An iron
shipyard established at Kaighn’s Point was prepared to turn out war vessels for
the Union. The railroads worked feverishly
to move troops and equipment into and out of the city. All the ferryboats available along the river
were pressed into service. Machine
shops fabricated tools and machinery.
The Camden textile industry began during this period, with the Camden
Woolen Mills completed in 1865.
After the War, Camden emerged as a
full-fledged metropolis. The
incorporation of the Camden Horse Railroad Company in March 1866 was symbolic
of its new standing. Although the
company did not begin constructing its various street rail lines until 1871, by
the end of that year Camden could boast of modern horsecar lines running
through its dirt thoroughfares. The
1869 incorporation of a company that still lists Camden as its headquarters was
another significant achievement. The
firm of Anderson and Campbell erected a canning and preserves factory at 41
North 2nd Street in that year.
Anderson withdrew from the company in 1873, leaving Joseph Campbell to
continue as sole proprietor until 1882, when he formed a partnership with
Arthur Dorrance, Joseph S. Campbell (his son), and Walter Spackman. This partnership is the ancestor of today’s
Campbell Soup Company.
In an era when steam was the dominant
source of power, many specialty firms manufactured boiler and engine parts, and
Camden was home to one of them. The
Camden Tool and Tube Works, founded in the 1850s as Griffith’s Pipe-Finishing
Mill, produced the tubes contained within boilers. The Reading Iron Works, which considered the products
manufactured by Griffith to be of a superior grade, purchased the works in
1864, installed all new machinery and tools, and reopened as Camden Tool and
Tube, producing not only boiler tubes, but also tools and piping for the
manufactured gas industry. Fifty
skilled workers received regular employment at these works, including George
Whitman, Walt's brother and former Civil War Lt. Colonel from Brooklyn, New
York, who came to work in Camden during 1868 as a pipe inspector. By 1871, George Whitman moved into a house
at 322 Stevens Street. In April of the
following year, George married Louisa Orr Haslam and brought her to
Camden. Four months later, George took
in his mother and his mentally retarded brother, Edward, as members of his
household.
A year later, in May 1873, Walt Whitman
arrived in Camden to visit his elderly widow
mother and his siblings. Within a month
of coming to George’s house, their mother passed away, sending the already
stroke-paralyzed and ailing Walt into a deep depression. After coming to grips with his grief, Walt
resolved to quit his clerk’s job in Washington and dedicate his life to
writing. Within the same year, George
Whitman contracted to have an Italianate-style brick dwelling of his own design
erected at the northeast corner of West and Stevens Street. Local carpenter David Lummis constructed the
new house for $3,700. Since Walt decided
to remain with George and his family, a second-floor bedroom with a bay window
facing West Street, with a grand view, was designated as Walt’s. But the poet found it too fancy for his
tastes and, instead, sought the vistas and solitude of a plainer, third-floor
bedroom that fronted on Stevens Street and looked out on the southern part of
the growing city. It was at his
brother’s house that Walt produced three editions of Leaves of Grass (1876, 1881-82 and 1882), along with Memoranda During the War (1875), Two Rivulets (1878), and Specimen Days and Collect
(1882-83). Many important cultural
figures came to visit Walt Whitman at this location—friends and colleagues such
as writers Oscar Wilde and Mary Mapes Dodge, the visual artists Sidney Morse
and Thomas Eakins, and the naturalist John Burroughs. (Sadly, the George Whitman house was lost to fire in the late
1990s.)
In 1884, George announced he had accepted
the offer of a new position with the McNeal Pipe Foundry in Burlington and
would be moving to that city, up the Delaware River from Camden. Walt was invited, even implored, to
accompany George and his family to their new house on Columbus Road in
Burlington, but Walt declined, preferring to remain behind in Camden, which he
had grown to love much as he had the Brooklyn of his youth:
Camden was
originally an accident, but I shall never be sorry I was left over in Camden.
It has brought
me blessed returns.
His
1882 edition of Leaves of Grass had
been quite successful, garnering a goodly amount of royalties. He determined that his earnings, and a loan
from a friend, should be used to purchase a place to live. He bought a two-story frame Greek Revival
style dwelling at 328 Mickle Street for $1,750 in April 1884 from the Lay
family and entered into an agreement with them. Since Walt was sick and had little furniture to call his own,
beyond the bed his father had made him, he asked if the Lays would remain in
the house, provide him with care and meals, and allow him use of their
furniture. He offered them a reduced
rent in exchange for these terms.
However, Walt was not an easy person to live with and after the end of
the first month, the Lays moved out, leaving Walt alone with his bed and two
packing boxes he used as a table and chair.
Unable to care for himself, Walt prevailed upon Mary O. Davis to move in
to his house with her furniture, cook for him, and tend to his physical needs
as a private nurse. Davis, a widow and
neighbor, agreed, coming to live in what Walt commonly referred to as “my
coop.”
Walt’s neighbor at 330 Mickle Street was
architect Stephen Decatur Button and his artist wife, Maria. Robert P. Gordon (a clerk), Abner Huston (a
locomotive engineer for the Pennsylvania Railroad), and John Robertson (a
paperhanger) all resided on the other side of Whitman at 326 Mickle. The 300
block is representative of all the blocks comprising Mickle Street, and in 1888
featured laborers, roofers, carpenters, railroad workers, a dentist and a
physician, a baker, painters, clerks, sawyers, dressmakers, designers, a
minister, machinists, a iron moulder, a blacksmith, a publisher, salespeople,
and milk dealers. At the northwest
corner of 3rd and Mickle Streets stood the Third Street Methodist
Episcopal Church, and Whitman complained bitterly about the cacophony produced
by the church’s choir. Retail
establishments on the 300 block in Whitman’s time included a fish store, a
grocery store, and a pharmacy.
Glimpses of Whitman’s life on Mickle Street
can be gleaned from Horace Traubel’s multi-volume book, With Walt Whitman in Camden.
Traubel, Whitman’s Boswell, made daily visits to Walt and took copious
notes of every conversation, faithfully recording the poet’s utterances between
1888 and his death in 1892. From time
to time, Whitman made comments about local affairs. In one frustrated outburst, he indicated he found the summer heat
stifling and also expressed anger with his female neighbors who insisted on sweeping
their steps and walks:
To one who
knows as I do what it all means, it is always painful to come back into the
cities—the streets—the stinking reeking streets—Mickle Street—sluttish gutters—women
with hair a-flying—dust brooms clouding the streets—confinement—the air shut
off. Oh!
But
Whitman found much pleasure on Mickle Street, too, including having easy access
to the ferries and being able to watch the trains from his bedroom window. In June 1888, Whitman suffered another
series of paralytic strokes and became a complete shut-in. He did not venture out of his house until
May 1889, when, sitting in a wheelchair, male nurse Warren Fritzinger pushed
Whitman around Mickle Street and down to the river. That same month and year, his friends held a seventieth birthday
party for Walt. A book, Camden’s Compliment to Walt Whitman, was
published for the occasion. Two years
later, Whitman’s friends held his last birthday party at the house. The following year, on March 26, 1892,
Whitman died and was buried at Camden’s Harleigh Cemetery in a mausoleum of his
own design.
After Whitman’s death, Mickle Street
remained a solid residential neighborhood, but Camden dramatically changed into
a modern industrial city. In 1894, two
years after Whitman’s death, machinist and inveterate tinkerer Eldridge Johnson
operated a machine shop near the Delaware River in Camden about five or six
blocks north of Mickle Street. Upon
perfecting a wire-stitching machine for the bookbinding industry, Johnson
turned his attention to producing a better clockwork motor for use with talking
machines or phonographs. His work
fostered creation of the Victor Talking Machine Company, another international
industrial dynamo that put Camden on the map; its descendant, RCA, still
maintains a presence in the city today.
In 1899, Camden’s shipbuilding tradition continued and won world-class
attention when a group of industrialists constructed the New York Shipbuilding
Corporation’s shipyard. During the same
year, the Pennsylvania Railroad erected a new combination ferry terminal and
train shed at the foot of Federal Street.
Three years later, in April 1902, Camden City Council passed an
ordinance allowing the railroad to elevate their trackage as part of a grade
separation and urban crossing elimination campaign. But it brought major upheaval to the Mickle Street
neighborhood. Suddenly, the houses on
the south side of Bridge Street disappeared and were replaced with the
so-called “Chinese Wall,” a stone wall standing fifteen to twenty feet high
composed of huge dressed brownstone blocks.
The residents along the north side of Mickle could no longer walk out
their back door to converse with their neighbor on Bridge Street, watch the
trains go by or even ascertain what was happening uptown. The morning sun ceased shining on the small
gardens planted at the rear fence and clothing left to dry on the line was now
subjected to regular treatments of cinders and ash raining down from the
elevated trackage.
Mickle Street reflected and endured the
rise and fall of industrial Camden. The
1940s-1950s brought a gradual decline to the city. Had he been alive to see it, Whitman would have mourned the
passing of March 31, 1952—the last day of ferry service on the Delaware River
between Camden and Philadelphia. The
ferries remained a favorite of Walt’s since his early days in Brooklyn. He would often ride simply to observe people
or converse with the deckhands. Two
years after the ferries ceased operations, the ferryhouse and railroad terminal
burned in a terrible fire, totally destroying the riverfront facility which had
greeted millions of travelers for over 50 years. During the past forty years, Mickle Street has suffered the loss
of buildings due to fires and successive waves of improperly planned urban
renewal projects. Even the Whitman
house streetscape, in the 300 block, features gaping holes where dwellings once
stood. The racial tensions and civil
unrest of the 1960s and early 1970s caused irreparable harm to both Camden’s
business community and the city’s neighborhoods. Almost overnight, the city lost more than 50% of its retail
establishments. So-called “white
flight” to the suburbs robbed the city of its traditional blue-collar
population base.
The end of most railroad passenger service
to Camden in the mid-1960s, precipitated by the construction of the PATCO line,
wrought the most negative change on the historic fabric of Mickle Street. With service ended to Broadway Station,
located near the corner of Broadway and Mickle Street, and trains no longer
using the trackage for access to the waterfront, there was no reason to retain
the Chinese Wall that had divided the city for seventy years. In the early 1970s, urban renewal money
funded the wall’s removal, along with all of the houses on the north side of
Mickle Street. By 1975, using the now
level site of the once-elevated railroad trackage, old Mickle Street had become
a much wider Mickle Boulevard, now featuring four traffic lanes and complete
with a center island. Only the street’s
south side initially featured buildings.
At 2nd and Mickle, work
was
well underway on a new Camden Housing Authority apartment complex called Mickle
Towers.
In 1981, the Camden County Park Commission
opened the Ulysses S. Wiggins Park at the foot of Mickle Boulevard. Named for a Camden physician and the founder
of the Camden chapter of the NAACP. The
park initially contained 21 acres, but today features over 50 acres along the
Delaware River. In conjunction with
neighborhood regentrification occurring in historic pockets of Camden like
Cooper Grant, Cooper Plaza and Cooper Street, the Philadelphia Inquirer
ballyhooed the park opening as an event “that could well mark the beginning of
revitalization in the downtown section of the city.” It did not. In February
1988, Camden County opened its new correctional facility. The front door of the Whitman House provides
an unimpeded view of the jail’s rear wall across Mickle Boulevard on the north
side.
The 1990s brought more changes along the
Camden waterfront as old industrial plants and former railroad yards gave way
to recreational facilities. The New
Jersey State Aquarium, the Tweeter E-Center (a concert pavilion), and a
circular marina all adjacent to the foot of Mickle Street have enhanced the
future prospects for the City of Camden, once ranked as among the poorest
cities in America. On March 31, 1992,
forty years to the day after ferry service between Camden and Philadelphia had
been ruptured, it resumed. Known as the
Riverbus or Delawhale, the vessel moves people back and forth between
Philadelphia’s Penn’s Landing and Camden’s waterfront area.
Today, positive events continue to
transform the Camden side of the Delaware River with construction of a minor
league baseball stadium, a cable tramway to carry passengers across the river
to Philadelphia, and the start of a new pier to serve as a permanent mooring
site for the battleship U.S.S. New Jersey. All of these changes suggest that Camden,
like the fabled phoenix, is rising from the ashes of its own despair and
returning to its glory days. Changes
for the better are also occurring on Mickle Street. In 1998-99, the State of New Jersey spent almost a million
dollars restoring the Walt Whitman House.
The state also has recently acquired the last remaining house in the
contiguous row containing the Whitman House.
Eventually, an adjacent empty lot will become Commonplace Park. Although perhaps too sanguine, Whitman's
vision in his poem "I Dream’d in a Dream" resonates loudly as Camden
and Mickle Street step into the future:
I dream’d in a dream I saw a city invincible to the
attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth,
I dream’d that was the new city of Friends,
Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love, it led the rest,
It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city,
And in all their looks and words.
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