CAMDEN BARS - Anderson Tavern

This bar appears in the 1888-1889 Camden City Directories as being operated by a William Brown. The 1890 Directory shows F. Joseph Rouh as the operator. The bar stayed in the Rouh family through the summer of 1910. Ludwig Najulis was the proprietor by 1914, as the L. Najulis Saloon. When Prohibition was enacted, Ludwig Najulis sold the property to the Jakabauskas family on July 21, 1919. Ludwig Najulis, who had emigrated from Lithuania, then part of Imperial Russia, and his wife Urszula were still living in Camden as late as 1930.

By 1930 the building at 751 Ferry Avenue was not operating as a store, according to the Census. The owner, Mrs. Veronica Jacabauskas, was a widow who had also immigrated from Lithuania. Mrs. Jacabauskas' daughter Anna was married to another Lithuanian immigrant named Victor G. Anderson.

Victor G. Anderson was born in Lithuania in 1902. He came to America in 1908. Victor Anderson wed Anna around 1926, and their son, Victor G. Anderson Jr. was born around 1929. Another son, William, was born in 1935.

When Prohibition was repealed in 1933 a liquor licenses was procured for 751 Ferry Avenue. By 1946 Victor G. Anderson Sr. was the operator of this bar, which was then was known as the Anderson Tavern.

In the early 1950s, the Housing Authority of the City of Camden procured all of the buildings along the north side of Ferry Avenue between Kossuth and 9th Street to make room for the Franklin D. Roosevelt Manor public housing project. The bar at 751 Ferry Avenue was razed. In 1952 Victor Anderson Sr. received a permit to erect a two-story combined building and residence in the next block, at 852 Ferry Avenue. By the spring of 1953 the buildings was occupied and Anderson continued in business as Vic's Cafe.

The bar at 852 Ferry Avenue was sold in the fall of 1972 to Carl Cowan and Edward C. Robinson, and soon was renamed Carl & Eddie's Bar. They remained in business into 1977, but by July of 1979 the building and land had been taken but the City for unpaid taxes and offered up for sale. The building was no longer standing by the late 1980s.

Victor G. Anderson Sr. had moved to 109 Curtis Avenue in Collingswood NJ by 1977. He later moved to Newcastle ME, where he passed away on October 23, 1998. His wife passed in November of 2000.