Introduction
Roy Steele’s Tavern was at 560 Carman Street, in the heart of downtown Camden. Prior to its conversion into a bar, 560 Carman Street had been the home of the Barrett Tire Company as late as March of 1932.
At some point between April of 1930 and the compilation of the 1931 Camden City Directory, former professional basketball star Roy Steele went into business at 28 Haddon Avenue, which in later years would be known as the Century Bar. Within a few years he had acquired a liquor license and opened a bar nearby, at 560 Carman Street. Roy Steele and his family would do business through at least 1959 there under the name Roy Steele’s Tavern.
Henry Roy Steele was born in Riddlesburg, Pennsylvania on October 22, 1886 to a butcher, Jacob Steele and his wife, the former Melissa Fluke. He was the second of four children, coming after brother Homer B. Steele and before younger siblings Mary and Ross E. Steele. The 1900 census shows the family living on Sixth Avenue in Homestead PA.
A fine athlete, Roy Steele played professional basketball for six seasons in the western Pennsylvania-based Central Basketball League, beginning with the 1906–1907 season. Roy Steele had the reputation as a clutch shooter as well as a team player. In 1906 with the Homestead Young Americans he scored 220 points in 29 games, the 7th most points in the CBL. When the league increased its schedule to 70 games the next season, 1907–1908, Roy Steele scored 455 points in 67 games, 8th highest in the Central League. In 1908–1909, Roy Steele helped the Homestead Young Americans win the CBL Championship with a 49–23 record. That season, Roy Steele posted 412 points in 65 games, again 8th best in the Central Basket Ball League. He also played with the Butler and Pittsburgh South Side teams of the Central league.
When the Central league folded in November of 1912, many of the circuit’s best players, including Roy Steele, came over to the Eastern Basketball League, which was centered around Philadelphia. Roy Steele, Jackie Adams, Jimmy Brown, and Eddie Dolin all eventually joined, and starred for the Camden franchise of the Eastern Basketball League, and Camden native Eddie Ferat, nearing the end of his career, also returned during the 1912–1913 season. In the better-financed Eastern Basketball League, Roy Steele played with one of the best teams in the East, Camden of New Jersey. The Camden team was known as the Camden Alphas from 1912 to 1917, the Camden Crusaders from 1917 to 1921, and as the Camden Skeeters from 1921 until the league’s collapse in 1923.
Although Roy Steele did not score as many points per game as before, his defense made him a valuable member of the team. He remained with Camden in the Eastern Basketball League until it folded in 1923. Roy Steele played some games with Gloversville in the New York State league and played one game with Camden during the 1912–1913 season. He split time between Gloversville and Camden the following season as well, and also split time between Camden and the Hazleton PA team of the Pennsylvania State League in 1915–1916. He played two games with the Paterson Crescents of the Interstate Basketball League during the 1916–1917 season.
Professional basketball was for the most part shut down during the 1918–1919 season. Roy Steele played one game for the Nanticoke Nans of the Pennsylvania State league during the 1919–1920 season. The 1919–1920 season for Roy Steele was a total success, ending with another championship, as he played 37 games for the Camden Crusaders and was seventh in the league in scoring. The 1919–1920 Camden Crusaders were champions of the Eastern Basketball League, which was and is acknowledged by many to be the leading professional basketball league of its time. His teammates included star players like Jimmy “Soup” Campbell, Neil Deighan, Eddie Dolin, and Dave Kerr, and young local talents Joe Hyde, Sam Lennox, and Richie Deighan. The team was owned by local businessmen Dr. Charles B. Helm and W. Penn Corson, who had also been Sheriff of Camden County. Roy Steele continued to play basketball in Camden until the Eastern league collapsed on January 18, 1923. Roy Steele appeared in two games for the Paterson Legionnaires in the Metropolitan Basketball league in 1922–1923. He returned to Paterson for the 1923–1924 campaign, when he returned to the Legionnaires for seventeen games. He was 37 years old when his professional basketball career came to an end.
Although much of Roy Steele’s career was spent at forward, Ed Wachter, a star player for several teams of the era, named Roy Steele as guard on his third team all-time greatest basketball team, which is notable in that Wachter only played against Steele for two seasons. Ed Ferat was also named on Wachter’s all-star team.
Roy Steele also played professional baseball on the minor league level. He opened the 1908 season in the Pennsylvania and West Virginia League for the Clarksburg team, was released and signed by the Connellsville Cokers of the same circuit where he played first base.
Roy Steele married Georgina “Jean” Orris on November 4, 1909. When he registered for the draft in 1918 he still made his regular home in western Pennsylvania. His draft card shows him living on the Boyd farm at Pitcairn, in Patton Township, Allegheny County PA and working as a farmer. Mr. and Mrs. Steele by that time had two children, with a third on the way, who was born shortly thereafter. His younger brother, Ross Emery Steele also was living and farming there.
The Steele family came to the Camden area the following year. Both the 1920 and 1930 Census shows Roy Steele living in Collingswood NJ with wife Georgina, daughter Edna, and sons Bruce K. and Henry Roy Steele Jr. The 1920 Census shows the Steele family living at 704 Grant Avenue in Collingswood NJ. Roy Steele’s brother, Ross Steele, who had also played some professional basketball, was living with them, as was teammate Jimmy “Soup” Campbell. Both Steele brothers listed their professions as machinists, while Campbell gave his as a “general mechanic” at a shipyard. In January of 1920, the stars of a champion professional basketball team still worked day jobs to make ends meet! The Steele family was still at the Grant Avenue address in April of 1930. Roy Steele was then selling electrical supplies and not in the bar business. This would indicate that he became involved shortly after that point, as he was operating the bar, apparently under lease, at 28 Haddon Avenue by the time the 1931 Camden City Directory was compiled.
Roy Steele’s Crusader teammate Neil Deighan had gone into the bar business in Camden. Joe Hyde was literally born into the business, as his father owned a bar in the Eighth Ward. Before it was all said and done Roy Steele, Jimmy “Soup” Campbell, and Sam Lennox would all be involved in the bar business.
In 1933 Roy Steele built a log cabin home on the Cooper River at South 18th Street and built a floating cafe on a barge in the river adjacent to his cabin. The cafe, designed to look like a log cabin, was also known as Steele’s Log Cabin.
By 1936 Roy Steele had acquired the tavern at 560 Carman Street that would bear his name. Son Bruce K. Steele would soon join the family business and manage Roy Steele’s Tavern for many years.
Roy Steele registered for the draft early in 1942. His World War II draft card shows that he lived at 537 Benson Street in Camden. He had by this time however, also acquired a bar at the Jersey shore. His brother Ross worked as a bartender and also lived at the Benson Street address.
In 1939, Roy Steele traveled to Somers Point, New Jersey, looking for a new investment opportunity. At the time Somers Point was a sleepy little town that you passed through to get to Ocean City. Roy found what he was looking for at 943 Bay Avenue, an old tavern named “Stretch Inn.” The tavern had been owned and operated by Thomas Stretch. Since he had passed away his widow, Bertha, had decided to sell the Inn. Steele and Bertha Stretch entered into an agreement to lease the inn for $40.00 a month for three years. The inn was described in the lease as a Tap Room and Cafe, which was a very accurate description. It suited Steele perfectly. Above the bar was an apartment with five bedrooms, one bathroom, dining room, living room and kitchen. The inn had one large room with a huge bar in the shape of a ship. Behind this room was a kitchen and storage area. Roy Steele asked his son-in-law, Elmer Blake, to come to the shore and help him manage the tavern on Bay Avenue now known as Steele’s Inn. So Elmer and his wife Edna and their daughter Jean moved in above the bar with their parents. Not long after this Roy Steele’s younger son and his wife also made the apartment of Steele’s Ship Bar home. All those people and one bathroom, remarkable.
In these early years the Somers Point bar was run like any other local tavern. Draft beer, mixed drinks and a kitchen that served up sandwiches, fries and great cole slaw. Edna Blake helped by serving food to the patrons. She liked to tell the story about two customers who came in and spoke with very heavy German accents and she was convinced they were spies that had been landed by submarine. Who knows — stranger things have happened.
In 1945, Roy Steele became very ill and was hospitalized much of the time. He passed away at Somers Point on June 17, 1946 and left the bar that he had purchased to his wife Georgina. Georgina continued to live with her family above the bar. Mrs. Steele moved to Somers Point, where she resided till her death on November 27, 1955. Elmer and Edna Blake ran Steele’s Inn until the winter of 1965.
After Roy Steele’s death, his family remained in the tavern business in Camden for many years thereafter. Bruce Steele, who managed the Camden bar, made his home in Collingswood with his wife Lillian. Ross Steele remained as a bartender and lived at 537 Benson Street through at least the fall of 1959. The bar was still open, as stated above, as late as the fall of 1959. Sadly, son Bruce Steele died in Camden on October 13, 1961; his wife Lillian remained a Collingswood resident until her passing in 1997. Brother Ross Steele passed away in September of 1965. It had closed by 1970. When Carman Street was “erased” to make way for “urban renewal,” Roy Steele’s Tavern went with it. The Walter Rand Transportation Center sits on the land where Roy Steele’s Tavern once lay.
Thank you to Elizabeth Blake Houck for her Somers Point memories.
Camden Crusaders — 1919–1920 Eastern Basketball League Champions
Front row, left to right: Jimmy “Soup” Campbell and Joe Hyde.
Second row: Dr. Charles B. Helm, Neil Deighan, Roy Steele, Eddie Dolin, Dave Kerr and Sheriff W. Penn Corson.
Back row: Bill Mitchell, trainer; Sam Lennox, Manager Bill Kennedy, Richie Deighan and Timekeeper Jim Kane.
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Roy Steele, Basketball Hero, Starts New Career in Cabin
Camden Courier-Post —
ROY STEELE, BASKETBALL HERO, STARTS NEW CAREER IN CABIN
Athlete of Old Days Now Mine Host at Log House and Floating Cafe He Designed From Aged Barge and Boyhood Ambition
Roy Steele!
Where is the basketball follower of a decade or two ago who doesn’t remember him?
How many are the memories recalled by the mention of his prowess on the wood-hardened court of the old Third Regiment Armory.
It’s years since Steele, “Jackie” Adams, Eddie Dolin, Bill Herron, Jimmy Brown, Bill Herron and Jimmy “Soup” Campbell brought the Eastern League cage championship to Camden. But it seems like only yesterday that Steele was in the midst of conflict in a Skeeter uniform battling the foe in the armory.
Those days are gone. Today they are nothing but cherished memories and not entirely forgotten if basketball followers traverse the Admiral Wilson boulevard.
On an illuminated sign opposite Eighteenth street, Camden, there is an illuminated sign. It merely says “Roy Steele” — the lone advertisement of his latest business venture — a log cabin and barge-cafe.
An Old Ambition
Incidentally, it is the answer to an ambition that Roy has sought for years to satisfy.
“When I quit basketball, I’m going to build myself a log cabin and live in it,” Roy told himself long ago.
In 1926, after 23 years in the game, Roy decided to call it quits. But it wasn’t until recently that he reached his goal.
“The cabin is mine but I’ve got to share it—with business,” Roy admitted today.
The cabin, constructed of cedar logs taken from the forests about Pemberton, is not Steele’s only proud possession.
Builds Floating Cafe
The other is his splendidly fitted-up barge, the Margaret E. Bunting. The barge, now virtually a floating cafe, once plied between Camden, Philadelphia and the South with coal and lumber.
Steele found it nestling in a Twenty-ninth street wharf some months ago and the idea came to him that it would be an added attraction to his log cabin.
So he spent thousands of dollars renovating the barge. The hatches were battened down permanently, the exterior and interior of the 180-foot craft were remodeled. Amidships where piles of lumber and coal were once stored, a dance floor 32 by 24 feet has been built.
The bridge of the barge has been transformed into a bar for the sale of 3.2 percent beer. Twenty-five years old, the barge now doesn’t look like its former self.
It took five weeks to build Steele’s Log Cabin. It is big enough to house 300 guests, the barge holding 400.
Fame Still Lingers
In his day, Steele was one of the best players in the Eastern basketball. He “broke in” with Homestead, Pa., in the Central League in 1903 and served for 10 years. He starred alongside Bill Powell, center who also pitched for the Pittsburgh National League baseball team; Bill Herron, who later starred for Camden; Bill Lukens and “Dutch” Wolfarth.
Steele toiled in the Central League until it “blew” in 1907. Then he went to Gloversville, N.Y., in the New York State League.
In 1911-1912, after Adams, Brown and Dolin had come to Camden, Steele came too because Adams recommended Steele to Manager “Pud” Henry. Steele joined the Skeeters in February, 1912, and stayed here until the demise of the old Eastern League in 1922.
Before and after the finale of the Eastern circuit, Steele found time to play in the Metropolitan and Pennsylvania State Leagues.
Wherever the game is played they’ve heard of Roy Steele and his feats. In his halcyon days Roy was one of the greatest scorers in the game.
Years ago when Roy Steele scintillated across the basketball courts for Camden he had two ideas in mind. One was to own a log cabin. The other was to start a business career when he finished playing the game. Today he has accomplished both. Out at Admiral Wilson Boulevard and the Cooper River the name of Steele — once emblazoned forth in newspaper sport page headlines — now sparkles from a log cabin. Roy is the possessor also of a floating cafe on a barge anchored in Cooper River beside the cabin. Opposite the barge (above), decorating the life-preserver, is pretty Miss Ann Pizagno, of 809 Moore street, Philadelphia.
In the ‘30s, they danced on a Cooper River barge
Camden Courier-Post —
By Thomas Bergbauer, Retired Courier-Post Editor
Over the years, Admiral Wilson Boulevard has been home to many attractions — some good and some not so good.
Among the good ones were the first drive-in theater, which was in Pennsauken; the famous Whoopie Coaster, a wooden thrill ride that automobiles could drive onto for 25 cents; and Roy Steele’s log cabin and dance barge.
The Whoopie Coaster will be the subject of a future column, and we have written about the drive-in theater. However, we have never written about the dance barge, and there have been several requests for something about it.
The log cabin and dance barge were the brainchild of Steele, a former Camden basketball great. He was a member of the Camden Skeeters basketball club of the Eastern League and helped bring the league’s championship game to Camden. He started playing in 1903 and retired in 1922, after the league’s demise.
When he died in 1946, at age 59, a Courier-Post editorial said, “Roy Steele was the toast of the town back in the years from 1912 to 1922.”
Log-cabin dream
After his basketball career ended, Steele wanted to realize his longtime dream of owning and living in a log cabin. The one he built was made of cedar logs from the woods of Pemberton Township. It was constructed on Admiral Wilson Boulevard at 18th Street during the early 1930s.
An illuminated sign that carried his name was the only advertisement of his business venture — a barge cafe in the Cooper River.
According to Courier-Post stories, the barge was called the Margaret E. Bunting, and it had been used to transport coal to the South from Camden and Philadelphia. Steele found it in the Delaware River, at the foot of 29th Street in Camden.
After having it moved to the Cooper River, Steele spent thousands to renovate it. The 180-foot barge had a dance floor that was 32 feet by 24 feet. Its bridge served as a bar that, according to research, sold 3.2 percent beer.
The barge could hold approximately 400 patrons, and it was linked by walkway to Steele’s log cabin, which also had a bar.
Frank Brown, 91, said he played drums in an eight-piece band on the dance barge when he was 15. He says the open-air barge had a canvas cover, held up by pipes with dropcloths draped over the sides, that kept patrons dry during inclement weather.
Sudden storm
Brown, a Collingswood High School graduate who lives in the Westmont section of Haddon Township, remembers a time when a storm came up. He said it had winds so strong that it bent the pipes and created a sail effect.
“It (the storm) shorted out all of the lights, and things were hectic for a minute,” said Brown, who said he only played drums on the barge for a couple of weekends.
Brown contacted us after he read an inquiry in the Courier-Post seeking information about Steele’s dance barge.
Florence Jaggard of Haddon Township, Steele’s step-granddaughter, told us via e-mail that she is 79 years old and does not remember seeing the “ship,” as she called it.
“But I heard many stories about it,” she said. “This man was far ahead of his time!!” she pointed out. “It was a great idea.”
Dance / Barge owner was basketball star
Continued from Page 5B
Steele’s granddaughter, Judy Steele Owens of Paoli, Pa., says her grandfather died before she was born.
“I knew of the floating bar but (have) no details,” she said via e-mail. “My grandfather was really known for his basketball skills.”
Grandson Bruce R. Steele of Marco Island, Fla., also sent an e-mail. He was born in 1937 and doesn’t have many memories of the boat — other than that of the ruins that were pointed out to him when he drove past it on the boulevard.
“My grandfather was, of course, a tremendous basketball player back in the ‘20s, and there was a picture in the Basketball Hall of Fame, in Springfield, Mass., of his team,” he said.
“My father, Bruce K. Steele, was an all-state football and baseball player at Collingswood High School and later was a championship golfer at Riverton Country Club.”
Too young to dance
Shirley Grinnan of Mount Laurel and Walter Moore of Haddon Township both called to say they recalled the barge but were too young to go dancing on it.
“When I was a little girl, I always said I was going to go dancing on it; but when I became old enough, it was no longer there,” Grinnan, 80, said.
Moore, 79, said he remembered it always being lit up with all kinds of string lights. “I believe it burnt down,” he says.
Reports say the barge eventually sank, and others recall it catching fire, but its remains were visible for years along the boulevard.
Bruce Steele says his father owned Steele’s, a bar on Carmen Street in Camden for many years, which his father had inherited from Roy Steele.
The former basketball star owned two bars in Somers Point — Steele’s Ship Bar and the Bala Inn. He was living in Somers Point at the time of his death.
“Roy Steele not only brought fame to himself but to Camden, the town that adopted him 34 years ago,” the Courier-Post concluded in its 1946 editorial.
Thomas A. Bergbauer is a retired Courier-Post copy editor and can be reached at (856) 346-0371, tbergbauer@verizon.net, or through Communities, Courier-Post, P.O. Box 5300, Cherry Hill, NJ 08034.
In this 1955 photo, workmen remove portions of the sunken barge.
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560 Carman Street.
Photos
Indicated by the red dot, 565 Carman Street lay just east of Broadway, behind the Broadway (later known as the Midway) Theater. Roy Steele’s Tavern was directly across the street. To the left you can see where the tavern and Carman Street lay in relationship to City Hall, the old Camden County courthouse, and Camden Catholic High School. All but City Hall were gone by the end of 1961. The Parkade Building had not yet been built. Downtown Camden, 1957.