Welcome to Cramer Hill, Camden, New Jersey, early in 2002. The neighborhood does not appear to have changed too much over the past 100 years. Cramer Hill, just north of downtown Camden, rests upon the Jersey side of the Delaware River. It was to here that several of the Rickenbach brothers moved from Rickenbach Station near Reading to begin the shipyard.
The photograph above was Wilson Rickenbach’s home, on 28th St. and Harrison Ave. in Cramer Hill, as of January 2002. Both this house and the adjacent house to the right belonged to Wilson and his family. Originally the corner house had horse stables behind, probably where the small garage is found. Below is the front of the house, where the very unusual design of the box-shaped house may be seen.
Wilson’s house is just about a block away from the entrance of the shipyard (below). The shipyard entrance was located at Buren Ave. and 27th St. Today all that remains is an old rusted fence and a driveway. The yard was open until 1959 and the property apparently has not been developed since.
A closer look into the yard reveals a still-visible boatslip (below), which may be seen in its heydey here.
Just down the street, on the northeast corner of 28th St. and Buren Ave. was the home of William Howard Rickenbach, who passed his later years spinning oakum in a small building at the yard in the mid 1920s. Today the site of his home is a vacant lot (below).
