THE YEAR 1903

SPAN OF A CENTURY
1828-1928
100 YEARS IN THE HISTORY OF CAMDEN AS A CITY

COMPILED FROM NOTES ANDS DATA COLLECTED BY
CHARLES S. BOYER
PRESIDENT CAMDEN COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY
PUBLISHED BY
CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY COMMITTEE
OF CAMDEN, NEW JERSEY
ADDITIONAL PHOTOS AND NOTES BY PHILLIP COHEN IN 2003

The Library Committee of City Council, on February 24^th, adopted a resolution presented by Councilman Charles Ellis, formally accepting Andrew Carnegie’s offer of $100,000 for a public library in Camden. On April 28, 1903 the Free Library Trustees recommended the purchase of the Dialogue property, at Broadway & Line Street, 80 x 1600 feet, for the new Carnegie Library. The sum asked was $15,0900 and on November 4, 1903 the property was obtained for that sum. 

The contract between  Aaron Ward and the Board of Freeholders for the bridge over Cooper’s  Creek at Baird Avenue was filed in the County Clerk’s office on March 11, 1903 . 

The Coal Dealers’ Association fixed the price of coal for the month of April 1903 at $5.75 per short ton of egg, stove, and nut coal. Compare these prices with those of 1928 . 

Dr. William H. Long Jr., on March 31, 1903, took out a permit for a seven-story building at Broadway and Sycamore Street, the building to be used as a bank, theater, and apartment house, and to be built by the Broadway Trust and Safe Deposit Company. That company never organized..

St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church organized December 3, 1903. The church edifice was dedicated May 7, 1905 . 

An intense heat wave, lasting ten days, was experienced about the middle of May, 1903. Never before since records had been kept had Camden sweltered under such hot weather in the month of May . 

William H. Hurley called a meeting at his office on August 3, 1903, of all owners of automobiles in Camden and vicinity to discuss the question of securing better outlets or connecting links between the city streets and the county roads. 

Four voting machines were received by the County Clerk early in October 1903. One was sent to Gloucester, one to Haddonfield and the other two were to be tried in the city.

City Council on October 29, 1903 voted the Free Public Library Trustees the use of the library building in Cooper Park as an up-town branch and the use of the plot of ground at Westfield Avenue and Federal Street, as an East Side branch .