Newton Avenue

To the Editor:

Sir—In answer to Mr. Simpkins’ letter to the Mail Bag of January 26. I wish to commend you, Mr. Simpkins for your splendid thought and forsight, experienced on your trips to Veterans Homes in Pennsylvania.

I agree with you that such a thing as a bugle and drum corps and a post being different organizations of the same family is absolutely wrong. They must under all circumstances be one big family.

But you speak of there being too many post homes in Camden to allow anyone of these to have a good home or bugle corps. Mr. Simpkins, or, may I call you “comrade,” we do have a post and a splendid bugle and drum corps that has won recognition in Pennsylvania and New Jersey that Camden should be very proud of.

The Public Service Bugle and Drum Corps of the American Legion has a membership of 48 members to date and extends to you V. F. W. Post 980 all wishes of success for another bugle and drum corps for Camden city, the key city to the playground of the world. I believe with you, Mr. Simpkins, Camden needs boosters and we as veteran organizations can do well in bringing this booster to our city.

ROBERT MUNRO, President of Bugle Corps, American Legion Post 231
350 Newton Avenue

Three men who entered pleas of guilty to stealing gas or electricity from the Public Service were sent to the county jail for 30 days each in default of $25 fines yesterday by Police Judge Pancoast.

Harry Hansen, 2733 Tyler avenue, admitted putting a detachment on his gas meter to prevent it registering. L. M. Thompson, chief clerk for Public Service, testified the device was discovered January 5.

Richard Fearon, 833 Newton Avenue, put a “run-around” on his electric meter because he had been out of work he told Judge Pancoast after Thompson had testified the alleged theft was discovered January 13.

John Waldner, 814 North Thirty-fourth street, said his wife was ill and he tapped the main feed line to obtain gas. He said they had four children. Thompson said Public Service employees discovered the alteration on January 10. Waldner’s meter was shut off in November for nonpayment of gas bills.

The savings of a widow were saved last night by Battalion Chief Charles Errickson as flames destroyed a photographic studio in her home at 939 Newton Avenue.

Erickson worked his way through dense smoke at the home of Mrs. Carrie C. Perkinpine to get her savings in a small box in a second story bedroom.

Mrs. Perkinpine lived with her son, Leonard J. Farrar, who has been unemployed two years. He was to have started work as a photographer next Monday but all of his equipment, including a camera, were lost in the fire.

“I had banked the furnace in the cellar for the night and was reading in the dining room when I heard a crackling noise,” Mrs. Perkinpine said. “I opened the cellar door and was nearly overcome by a gust of smoke.”

She ran to the home of neighbors across the street and they called the fire department. Four companies responded under Errickson. The fire spread to the photographic studio set up in the cellar by Farrar and destroyed his developing and enlarging equipment as well as the camera. Firemen were unable to account for the origin of the blaze unless sparks from the furnace ignited a pile of rubbish in the cellar. The fire was confined to the cellar although the upper rooms were damaged by smoke.

Three other families were forced to flee their homes because of smoke from the Perkinpine home.

— 939 Newton Avenue, 1936: Mrs. Carrie Perkinpine, Leonard J. Farrar. Camden Courier-Post, February 20, 1936.

930 Newton Avenue — 1906, John Schnitzler & Family, Emerson Schnitzler. Philadelphia Inquirer, December 2, 1906. Dr. Grant Elmer Kirk — Victor Kissling.

Four people were forced out of their home Thursday when a fire in a vacant building spread to their apartments, authorities said.

The fire originated in a vacant building at the corner of Newton Avenue and Walnut Street near Broadway, said Ralph Schneeman, a city fire inspector.

The fire began about 2:37 p.m. and was brought under control about an hour later, he said.

The second floor of the vacant building collapsed, Schneeman said, and the building will have to be demolished today.

The cause of the fire is under investigation. Schneeman said the Red Cross was contacted to help the displaced residents.

— 1000 & 1002 Newton Avenue. Camden Courier-Post, September 3, 2004.

A special officer who procured a warrant from a justice of the peace for a man he accused of threatening to hit him and thus causing the city to spend $4.75 was reprimanded yesterday by Police Judge Pancoast.

“As a special officer of the city you have the power to arrest anyone committing a crime,” Judge Pancoast said. “Yet, when you say this prisoner threatened to hit you and became abusive, instead of arresting him, you go get a justice of the peace warrant, which costs the city $4.75.”

“In this case; however, you are going to pay the $4.75, for I am going to suspend sentence on this defendant and assess the costs against the complainant.”

The defendant was John Kuebler, 1018 Newton Avenue. He was arrested upon complaint of Special Officer William Bishop, 1022 Newton Avenue. Bishop, as a special officer, watches parked automobiles near a Broadway theatre.

— 1022 Newton Avenue, 1933: William Bishop.