CAMDEN BARS - 801 Pine Street - Gordon's Hotel & Livery

Thomas Gordon and his wife Maria had a saloon and stable at 801 South 2nd by 1876. They ran the businesses into the 1890s, then operations fell to their sons Thomas and Robert. Robert Gordon didn't initially go into the business, the 1887 through 1890-1891 city directories show him working as a printer/compositor. The elder Gordons both died in early 1895. Robert Gordon married Emma Compton, of whom more will wrote of below.

Robert and Thomas Gordon was involved, the City Directory entry for that year reads "Gordon Thomas, Stable & Liquors 801 and 807 South 2nd street", with Robert Gordon's entry reading "Gordon, Robert W., manager, home 807 South 2nd street". Robert Gordon was politically active and was elected as a Republican to Camden City Council from the Fifth Ward in 1904.

The 1910 Census sheet, dated April 18, 1910 discloses the following for 801-807 South 2nd Street. Robert W. Gordon, age 45; born in Ireland; occupation: proprietor livery stable (head of household); Emma Gordon, age 37; born in New Jersey; occupation: none (wife); Thomas Gordon, age 49; born in Ireland; occupation: proprietor saloon (brother). Thomas W. Gordon died at the age of 51 on April 26, 1912.

The 1914 City Directory shows Robert W. Gordon - livery and liquors at 801 South 2nd Street, with his home at 807 South 2nd Street. Robert Gordon died on December 19, 1914.

Mrs. Emma Gordon ran the bar through 1919, until age, changes in the neighborhood, and the onset of prohibition gave her cause to move away and lease the business. This did not turn out to be a very good idea. The 1924 Camden City Directory shows that Joseph Devine was operating under a "soft drinks" license, which meant he could sell low alcohol beer. Joseph Devine's real name was Joseph Deven. He was better known as Polack Joe Devon (newspaper accounts spell his name in various ways, Deven, Devon, Devine, etc.) and was a somewhat notorious character as a political leader and gangster in Camden's Third Ward. Emma Gordon had moved back to 807 South 2nd Street by 1924, and lived there a late as 1927. By 1929 Jerome A. Mauro had both the home at 807 South 2nd and the bar at 801, which, as Prohibition was still in force, he operated under a soft rink license.

Robert & Emma Gordon's great-great-neice Beth Crane wrote in 2008:

Emma and Robert Gordon were my great-great-aunt and uncle and I grew up (in the 1950's) hearing stories about this saloon. According to which family member you were listening to, it was either a magnificent Taj-Mahal-palace of a saloon, where all the best people in Camden hobnobbed ... or it was a filthy hellhole where all the lowlife hoodlums congregated, and Satan was the bartender. I've always wondered what was the truth about the place.

Robert Gordon was a Camden city councilman, so the saloon was first in his brother's name (Thomas Gordon) then in Emma (Compton) Gordon's name. I guess he didn't want the teetotalers in town voting against him!

Here is an interesting story about Emma Compton that I think should be preserved for posterity: Emma lent money to Rev. Carl McIntyre for him to build that church of his in Collingswood, so she held the mortgage on the church. When she died, Rev. McIntyre was horrified to learn she had left the mortgage to her nephew, Ed Compton, who owned Compton's Log Cabin, a seafood restaurant on Cuthbert Boulevard where "demon rum" was served. He was so afraid that it would become public knowledge that his church's mortgage was held by the owner of an alcohol-serving establishment that he immediately showed up at Ed's with the CASH to pay off the mortgage in full.

I heard their livery stable specialized in providing fancy horses (I'm not sure that is the correct way to put it) for funeral corteges. What I mean is, the horses would be wearing elaborate silver and black harnesses with long black feathers sticking straight up from their foreheads.

My grandmother told me that when my grandfather was just a little boy (he was born in 1897), Emma would save the corks from the champagne bottles from the saloon for him to play with. And if the saloon served champagne ... well, it couldn't have been such a den of iniquity.

The truth of the matter of palace of hell hole lies somewhere in between. When the Gordon's were operating the business, and as Robert Gordon was active politically, serving as a city councilman, the Gordon's establishment would have been a top of the line, for those times and in that neighborhood, establishment. South 2nd Street was a much more traveled road in those times. It connected the Market Street Ferry and the Kaighn Avenue Ferry, and from South Second and Kaighn Avenue one would pick up Ferry Avenue to travel southwards to Gloucester, Woodbury, and the rest of South Jersey. For all intents and purposes, every traveler who came to South Jersey over the Market Street Ferry to go southwards into New Jersey and who did not continue by rail would pass by the Gordon's business.

THEN things changed.

The introduction of the automobile and improvements to Broadway didn't help business, Thomas Gordon died in 1912 and Robert Gordon passed away in December of 1914.When Prohibition came on in 1919 and with Robert gone, the bar apparently was rented. There were A LOT of shady characters in that part of South Camden, and Polack Joe Deven (or Devon, or Devine) was one. Polack Joe was politically active in the 1920s when oftentimes you couldn't tell the gangsters from the politicians. There is no doubt that when he was running the bar, Camden's more notorious characters would have been his clientele.

The 1947 Camden City Directory shows that the house at 807 South 2nd Street was still occupied, but no mention is mad of 801 South 2nd. It is likely that the building may have not still been standing at that point in time.