Dear Reader,
This second installment of the 1909 Christmas issue of the New Era includes pages 25-44 plus the inside and outside of the back cover of this remarkable nostalgic tour of the various political and social organizations and business establishments of Riverton, Palmyra, and Cinnaminson.
While Part 1 included information mainly about Riverton and a number of advertisers, this second part is mainly about Palmyra, and Cinnaminson, and more advertisers. Some facts may be old news to followers of Palmyra history, but others just seem the stuff of winning bar bets. That is, if you know the answers.
The pages paint a portrait of the community’s economic vitality as they boast of Palmyra and Riverton’s first schoolhouse and expanding school enrollment, the building of the Camden & Amboy Railroad (the 19th century forerunner of the RiverLine light rail passenger service which follows the same route), and the practice of five neighborhood farmers to ship their produce by boats which each carried 100 baskets of corn. Once part of Cinnaminson like its upriver cousin, Riverton, Palmyra became a separate township in 1894.
The publication traces the origins and 1909 status for a number of social and fraternal clubs and organizations. Among the more curious are the hundred member Palmyra Bicycle Club, the Loyal Temperance Union (a group which spearheaded the crusade for prohibition), the storied Palmyra Field Club, the Independence Fire Company No.1, and several patriotic groups.
Another amazing Palmyra fact involves one of its churches which actually was built in Riverton in 1859 and was moved to Palmyra to “…open for divine service on the new site Friday, May 8, 1885.”
“About Our Advertisers” on page 35-38 is a who’s who of the area’s 45 principal commercial establishments. Brief descriptions of each of the businesses appear for grocers, butchers, painters, plumbers, druggists, tailors, bakers, and other merchants and tradesmen of all sorts. Advertisements take up the remainder of the publication, some at a full page like the one for Dreer’s Nursery, and others at a half, or smaller fraction, as in the ad for John B. Murphy, Horseshoer at Broad and Cinnaminson.
Altogether, it is a pretty cool history local history lesson in twenty pages from a primary source that you won’t find on your typical public library shelf. Click on the link to download and view the pages. Be advised that it is a large 5.23MB PDF file.
The original copy is about 9¼″x12¼″ but these scans have been cropped to 8½″x11.″ We thank Mr. Fred DeVece for providing the original issue from which I scanned these pages. – John McCormick, Gaslight News Editor
Click here to view a PDF file of the Part 2 of the 1909 New Era Christmas Issue. Be advised, it is a 5.23MB file. – John McCormick, Gaslight News editor
