CARBON STREET, also known as Carbon Court and as Carbine Street, runs south from 1010 Spruce Street into the rear of the parking lot of what has been the Salvation Army headquarters in Camden since the 1960s. This lot had been the home of the Camden Home for Friendless Children from the 19th century into the late 1950s or early 1960s. The street originally ended at ground belonging to the Camden Cemetery, at some point after 1906 a section appears to have been acquired by the Home for Friendless Children.

Carbon street does not appear in the 1885 Sanborn Map of Camden. It is listed in the 1887-1888 Camden City Directory, with a laborer, William Daly, living at 7 "Carbine Street". By 1891, 10 houses stood on Carbon Street, numbered 901 through 910. No homes are listed in the 1924 Camden City Directory, however a Frank Long is listed at 905 Carbon Street in the 1929 edition. The 1930 Census shows two occupied homes on Carbon Street, the Long family at 905, and Louis Rivell and family at 908 Carbon. By 1932 all but one of the homes on Carbon Street were the property of he nearby Home for Friendless Children. As Louis Rivell was in 1928 employed as a janitor at the nearby Home for Friendless Children,  the acquisition of the proporties probably had already taken place.

The 1943 City Directory shows 905 Carbon Street as a vacant dwelling, and no homes are listed in the 1947 edition. 

Do you have a Carbon Street memory or picture? Let me know by e-mail so it can be included here.

 Phil Cohen