1. Kaighn Avenue Dam
Until the Camden County Parks Commission constructed a concrete tidal gate across the Cooper east of Kaighn Avenue in 1938, the Cooper River was navigable from the Delaware River to Grove Street in Haddonfield where it was about 40 feet wide and 10 feet deep. The tide, which today varies about 6 feet before the gate, ran as far east as Kings Highway in Haddonfield. Present tidal flows east of the Kaighn Avenue Tidal Gate are controlled to provide storm water retention capacity for rowing and other boating activities. A fish ladder was added later to allow herring to swim upstream to spawn. The ladder allows fish to migrate, driven by their sense of smell .
Gateway Park
The park built along Admiral Wilson Boulevard by the Delaware River Port Authority in 2000, was initially meant to provide a scenic view for those traveling from NJ to Philadelphia for the Republican National Convention. The green space replaced what had been a string of strip clubs and seedy motels along the boulevard. After the convention, the park was to be transferred to Camden County, but that never happened. Fourteen years later the park is being cleaned-up and will be turned over to the Camden County Municipal Utilities Authority (CCMUA) and NJ Conservation Foundation.The rapid growth of automobile use profoundly altered Camden County’s economy and landscape especially along the Cooper River corridor. It increased demand for new and vastly upgraded bridges and highways, shifted business locations and development outside the city and led to new ways to think about and design public places and parks. Admiral Wilson and Crescent Boulevards had perhaps the most impact on Camden and its suburbs, as the first was designed to speed motorists quickly through the city to Philadelphia, and the second to route autos completely around the City of Camden. Named for Admiral Henry Braid Wilson Jr., a Camden native and World War I naval hero, Admiral Wilson has been the most famous and alternately the most infamous road in South Jersey. When originally conceived the boulevard was meant to be a parkway, providing motorists with pleasant views of the river, Camden High School, and city and county owned parks along the Cooper. State highway officials abandoned this idea when they decided to sell the land adjacent to the boulevard to private interest rather than turn it over to the city for parks.
Farnum Park/Pavilion
Farnum Park/ Pavilion- Once the site of a beautiful city park where the brick pavilion offered shade and a vendor sold ice cream. Farnum Park is now under water because of a Dyke that was breached in a hurricane in the 1970s. The skeletal remains of the pavilion off of Kaighn Avenue recently collapsed during a storm.Camden City bought 80 acres east of Baird Boulevard in 1904 for Forest Hill Park. City Engineer Levi Farnham designed the park with a lake with island. Farnham’s plan included stone bridges to the island and the pavilion near the lake’s edge on the right . The city renamed the park Farnham Park in 1927 to honor its former engineer.
Baird Street Bridge
Baird Street Bridge- Originally built in 1903, the Baird St. Bridge serves as a critical connection in the city from north to south. It is marked as a historical landmark.
Red Hill
Red Hill- Bank located in Forest Hill Park, once the site of a confrontation between Dutch fur traders in 1632 and the residing Native Americans. .Dutch Navigator David Pietersz de Vries was the first European to sail up the Cooper River when he made a return trip to the Delaware River in 1632 to find the bones of the 34 colonists he had left at the Fort Nassau the year before. De Vries spared the Lenni Lenape who confessed to the massacre and took no revenge because he needed to trade for food. The Lenni Lenape then decoyed De Vries to Timmerkill (Cooper’s Creek) where they said the food was stored. De Vries sailed up the creek and anchored near Red Hill (the bluff overlooking Baird Boulevard Bridge today). That night a young Lenni Lenape mother, hearing that the men of her tribe planned to slay the Dutch when they landed the next day, paddled a canoe to De Vries’ vessel and told him of the plot. De Vries made his escape and soon after sailed out of the Delaware abandoning the Dutch effort to colonize New Jersey. Red Hill, also known as Ward’s Hill, was formed during the ice age, when the sun’s rays struck and melted the Cooper’s east bank faster than the west bank. Camden’s park commission constructed the gazebo shown on top of Red Hill in this photo. Camden County constructed a half-size replica of this gazebo at Challenge Grove Park in Cherry Hill. The Camden City Park Commission also erected a white marble statue of General George Washington praying at Valley Forge on top of Red Hill. Officials moved the statute to the Justice Center in downtown Camden in 1985 to protect it from vandalism.This view of the Cooper River and Camden shows three boys climbing steps to the top of Red Hill in Forest Hill (Farnham) Park near Baird Boulevard Bridge. From left to right in the background are the brick buildings of the Camden Iron Works, the white buildings of the Cooper Hospital, the city trash incinerator chimney, low buildings bellowing to N.Z. Graves, and the General Chemical Company. The New Jersey Highway Department constructed Admiral Wilson Boulevard through the wetlands and tidal marshes adjacent to the Cooper River on the right.
Camden Swimming Pool
Camden Swimming Pool- A park with a swimming facility designated for whites where they served 145,000 people. A pool in South Camden was constructed for people of color. In 1929 the Camden County Park Commission began constructing a county park within the City of Camden after converting 33 acres of “swampland” into highland along the Cooper River east of Pine Street. The New Camden Park, which opened May 30, 1931, included tennis courts,an open air dance floor, a bandstand, playgrounds, a bath house and the largest swimming pool complex east of the Mississippi. .The main Farnham Park swimming pool with an adjacent diving, racing, and wading pools, was the largest bathing pool systems in the country with the following dimensions: general swimming pool -- 125 by 240 feet; diving and racing pool -- 60 by 125 feet; and wading pool – 80 feet in diameter. The complex served 5,000 on a hot day in 1933 and 145,000 in the year 1936. The Park Commission demolished the pool and the bath house thirty years later leaving only the baseball field and tennis courts
Campbell's Soup Company HQ - formerly Camden Iron Works
Campbell’s Soup Company- Campbell’s Soup acquired property for its test kitchens, research lab, and what remains its world headquarters today.John and Jesse Starr purchased land from the Richard M. Cooper estate in 1847 to construct the Camden Iron Works at the location south of the Admiral Wilson Boulevard (Route 30) bridge shown in the foreground of the photo above where the Cooper River makes a 90 degree turn. The Starrs made cast iron pipe stowed on the dock next to the two masted tall sailing vessel and other river barges shown in the photo below. They operated until 1883 when the R.D. Wood Company gained control. The Wood facility went bankrupt in 1917. The City of Camden purchased the site by 1920 for a Civic Center it never built but did convert one of the large iron works casting sheds into a convention hall that was used until a 1953 fire. The Campbell Soup Company acquired much of the land to build its test kitchens, research laboratories in the 1950s and then later built the company’s world headquarters on the site. The peaked roof building below the docked vessel shown above remains on the site today.
Federal Street Bridge/ Old incinerator
Federal Street Bridge/ Old incinerator- Early 1700’s Cooper River had a ferry to transport people to Mt.Holly and other towns North. 1762- Bridge was constructed to make travel easier. Incinerator was once a site of a crematory in the early 1900’s; it was later used to burn trash. Thomas Spicer established a ferry across the Cooper and a tavern on the eastern bank in 1736 near today’s Federal Street Bridge shown in an “open position” in the photo above. While Haddonfield merchants opposed building a bridge in Camden on grounds that it would block navigation and divert commerce from Haddonfield, proponents went ahead and built one at Spicer’s crossing in 1762 to make travel to Coopers Ferry more convenient along the Burlington Road. General George Washington ordered the bridge destroyed in 1778 to impede British soldiers who foraged and looted the countryside around Camden during their Philadelphia occupation. A small battle was fought on both sides of this location during the American Revolution. The 1868 iron center-pivot bridge was replaced by the present single-leaf bascule span (shown in the photo above) built by Sherzer Rolling Bridge in 1908. Camden City rehabilitated, strengthened, and permanently pinned the bridge shut in the early 1990s.
Lightship (Barnegat)
Lightship (Barnegat)- Built in 1904 by NY Shipbuilding in Camden, vessel was used to inspect incoming boats in the Delaware during WWII.A Boarding party would determine a ship’s identity, cargo, homeport and last port of call. If cleared, ships were allowed to proceed. It now sits in Wiggins Marina awaiting maintenance and repair.The Barnegat was built in 1904 by the New York Shipbuilding Company in Camden. The vessel served from 1904 to 1924 as the lightship for Five Fathom Bank, which is located 15 miles (24 km) from the Cape May Lighthouse.[3] The vessel was then used as a relief for the next two years. In 1927 the vessel was assigned to the Barnegat Lighthouse station. In 1942 the vessel was withdrawn from the Barnegat station to serve as an Examination vessel at Edgemoor, Delaware. The Barnegat would inspect all vessels entering the Delaware River until 1945.[3] The vessel returned to the Barnegat station, where it served until it was decommissioned on 3 March 1967. The Barnegat was then donated to the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in Saint Michaels, Maryland. The museum was unable to keep up with the maintenance of the vessel and sold the vessel to the Heritage Ship Guild in 1970 to be displayed at Penn's Landing.[3]The Barnegat is now docked at Pyne Poynt Marina in Camden awaiting maintenance and repair work.[
Petty’s Island-
Petty’s Island- Once prime fishing and hunting grounds for the Lenni Lenape Indians, Petty’s Island is a naturally diverse island. It is home to the water marigold, a rare plant found only on the Delaware River. Petty’s is currently in the process of being restored as a nature preserve for use by the public.Islandt served as a place where people hunted, fished, gathered herbs, farmed, built and repaired boats, operated blacksmith shops and sawmills, manufactured wagons and chains, ran a drinking and dancing establishment, conducted lotteries, stored coal and petroleum products, refueled ocean-going vessels, refined oil, and operated a port. The Lenni Lenape, called the island Aequikenaska (“where the panther ran”). When Elizabeth Kinsey (c. 1650-1720) purchased the island in 1678, the deed recording the sale described it as the “great island lying before Shaksemasen,” a reference to a former Lenape meeting place and the location of her plantation home on the west side of the river. Kinsey’s deed contained provisions that exemplified early Quaker policy for good relations with the Lenape: it spelled out their right to continue to hunt and fish on the island, their promise not to kill her hogs or set her fields aflame, and her obligation to make yearly payments of rum and powder to them. After William Penn (1644-1718) surrendered his claim to Shackamaxon Island in a 1684 patent issued to Thomas Fairman (c. 1650-1714), whom Kinsey married in 1680, map-makers and land owners referred to it as “Fairman’s Island.”Fairman’s Island was part of Pennsylvania and a point of connection between the new province and West Jersey. From 1681 to 1683 Quakers crossed the Delaware for their monthly meetings, alternating between the homes of the Fairmans at Shackamaxon and William Cooper (1632-1710) at Pyne Poynt (later part of Camden) on the opposite shore. The island was a landmark for Delaware River boat travelers.
Pyne Poynt Park
William Cooper built a house above the Delaware River and named the adjacent land Pyne Poynt for the tall pine forest that grew there. William’s son Joseph obtained a Dutch style one story house built in 1695 from his father here in 1709. The older part of the house was the 14th oldest building in New Jersey and was built with native stone and measured 24 feet in width and 46 feet in length. The 2.5 story brick addition shown here was built for Joseph’s son Isaac sometime before 1785. The structure became known as the Cope House through marriage of Margaret Cooper to Israel Cope. Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography recalled him spending a cold night not far from this site on his maiden voyage to Philadelphia after his ferry boat got lost enroute from Burlington, N.J. The house was destroyed by vandalism and fire. The Coopers Ferry Development Corporation plans to partially restore and memorialize the remains of the house.
State Street Bridge
The first bridge across the Cooper closest to its confluence with the Delaware River is the State Street Bridge. Daniel Bishop built a bridge in this location in 1857. Benjamin Sweeten built a replacement “Warren Through-Truss” center-pivot bridge in 1899 to replace it. Camden County built a fixed replacement bridge in 2013 and converted the State StreeT Bridge shown in the June 1977photo above for pedestrian use.
Benjamin Cooper House
Benjamin Cooper, grandson of William Cooper, the emigrant, built this two and a half story gambrel-roofed stone house located at Point and Erie Streets in 1734. When the British Army occupied Philadelphia in 1777-78, the commander of its New Jersey outpost, Lt. Col. Robert Abercrombie made it his headquarters. The house is Camden’s only remaining ferry tavern. Ferry and neighborhood patrons enjoyed the saloon and the surrounding gardens that were added to the building at the end of the 18th century
Coopers Ferry at Coopers Point
The long oared wherry carried people, horses, and carriages across the Delaware River. Early Quaker settlers took turns crossing the river on alternate months to attend the monthly meeting at William Cooper’s Pyne Poynt home and Thomas Fairman’s Shackamaxon house on the opposite shore of the Delaware River until Philadelphia’s meeting house was built. Fairman, husband of Petty’s Island owner Elizabeth Kinsey, senior Pennsylvania Quaker, and deputy surveyor for William Penn, allowed Penn to use his house the first year Penn stayed in his new colony. He also selected the site and negotiated the purchase of the Land on which Penn built Philadelphia.
Shad fisheries
fisheries were Camden’s first industries as shown on the circa 1810 map above. Fishermen caught shad by the ton along the shore near the confluence of the Cooper and Delaware. John McPhee’s The Founding Fish traced the shad’s demise starting with the Lenape and early settlers spearing schools of spawning shad herded into weirs in the early 1800s to when gill nets were invented allowing fishing farther from shore. The shad harvest peaked in the early 1900s then began to collapse from overfishing and river pollution.
Pomona Hall
Pomona Hall, also called the Joseph Cooper House, is shown in this November 1925 photo shortly after it became the headquarters of the combined Camden City and Camden County Historical Society. Joseph Cooper, Jr., grandson of the first William Cooper, a leader in the colonial assembly, and a fruit tree cultivator, first built one part in 1726 on a 400 acre plantation. His youngest brother Isaac, then Isaac’s son, Marmaduke, inherited the plantation. In 1788 Marmaduke transformed a Quaker style building he inherited into a classic Georgian double pile mansion with balanced fenestration called Pomona Hall. Marmaduke refused to follow the decision of West Jersey Quakers to free their slaves. As a result he was banned from attending Quaker meetings.
Harleigh Cemetery - Walt Whitman's Tomb
Walt Whitman, the great American poet, designed his own tomb to resemble an etching by poet William Blake. Two women in Victorian dress visit Whitman’s tomb in the circa 1900 photo above. Whitman moved to Camden in 1873 where he completed his book of poems, Leaves of Grass, in 1881. Ralph Waldo Emerson found Whitman’s book to be “the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom America has yet contributed.”
First Drive-in Movie Theater
Richard Milton Hollingshead, Jr. patented the first drive-in movie theater in May 1933 because his mother was too large to fit into a regular movie theater seat. Using his car, a 1928 Kodak movie projector, and two sheets nailed between two trees for a screen, he figured to serve more than one patron he would also need ramps for each parking space so patrons could see the screen over other vehicles. With three investors he formed Park-It Theatres, Inc. On June 6, 1933 they opened the world’s first "Automobile Movie Theatre" on the 400-acre site on Admiral Wilson Boulevard shown in the aerial photo above. RCA Victor provided three 36 square foot speakers to go with a 40 foot by 50 foot screen
