Horatio Draper

PROFESSOR HORATIO T. DRAPER may well be considered the father of the modern Camden school system. After serving in the Civil War, he completed his education, and began working as a teacher in the late 1860s in Pennsylvania. He came to Camden in 1872, and immediately made an impact in the schools of the city.

Elected principal of all the schools in the Third District, which was made up of Camden's 5th and 6th Wards, he also continued to teach evening courses. He was placed in charge of Camden's Manual Training School, which became Camden Manual Training and High School at Haddon and Newton Avenues during the administration of Mayor Cooper B. Hatch at the turn of the century. In 1896 he was placed in charge of all of Camden's public schools, and he oversaw the construction of the new high school during the first few years of his tenure, which appears to have lasted until 1906.

The Draper family lived at 582 Clinton Street in the late 1880s and early 1890s. They moved to 745 Wright Avenue in 1901, and the 1908 City Directory shows him as living at 719 Penn Street. Horatio Draper does not appear in the 1909 City Directory.

Horatio Draper and his wife Eleanore had two daughters, Anna and Agnes. Miss Agnes Draper began teaching in Camden's public schools in 1909, and remained a teacher for over forty years. The Draper family were members of St. Paul's Episcopal Church. 

Biographical Review - 1897

Camden Courier-Post
Evening Courier - April 23, 1928

It is not so many years ago, old timers say, since Fetters School at Third and Mount Vernon Street was considered large enough to accommodate youngsters for several generations. Now a six-room annex is to be built on the north side facing Walnut Street. Back in 1905 five rooms were added in the annex on Mount Vernon Street. With the new structure the school will contain 19 rooms, which would have thought far too large for a high school in the 90s, when Camden had its first experiment in that line. That was in the old Federal Street building later occupied by the Post-Telegram

Half a Century Ago

When Fetters School was built in 1875 it was considered about the last word as far as a school structure went. It was of stone, solidly constructed and furnished with gas, running water, and everything then regarded as thoroughly modern. The largest school downtown was the old Kaighn building on Newton Avenue, until the 1870s ample for the Kaighn Point area.

There were plenty of open lots when the Fetters School was built. Those days Camden was something of a struggling community with districts that had not yet lost their individuality. As a pupil in the early 90s in old Fetters  I recall the section had many open spaces. Nothing remotely suggested the part-time classes was then necessary, certainly not thought of by Professor Horatio Draper, of blessed memory, who guided Camden’s educational system more than 30 years before he was displaced by the late Mayor Hatch at the close of the last century

Nothing had then been heard of a “melting pot” as applied to America and its schools. But around Kaighn Point even in the 80s there was the first evidence of a great influx of those from across the seas who were soon to follow the old families, who’s children were to enter that melting pot and become transformed into American citizens

The Melting Pot

The Fuhrmans, Auerbachs, Lichtensteins were among the first I recall. Many others followed; especially from the Russian Polish district where life was hard and oppression severe. Came the immigrant wave from South Italy whose descendants long since have taken possession of the district spreading from Third and Pine, once the stronghold of English, German, and Irish families. In a police census a quarter of a century ago it developed that the Fifth Ward could boast representatives from every nation on the face of the globe, even to a Finlander, some Turks with Japs and Chinese commonplace.

It was about the period when Miss Clara S. Burrough, long principal of the High School and now recovering from an operation in Cooper Hospital, was principal of Fetters that the big change came that the classes were composed largely of children of foreign parentage. Often they did not know a single world of English. Teachers had their problems and Miss Burrough will undoubtedly recall the great task involved in really making the “melting pot” down there in the old school at Third and Mount Vernon Street effective. But she and the valiant corps under here direction tackled it and by the time Miss Burrough was elevated to the principalship of Camden High, a very deserved promotion, by the way, the problem had been totally solved.

Hot Times in the Old Town

Incidentally Miss Burrough will likewise recall the hectic conditions in more ways than one for the period marked turmoil in the educational world hereabouts. “Old Drape” had been fired overnight by Hatch, indignation meetings were held, demands were made for his reinstatement but the Committee of Public Instruction, headed by the late C.S. Magrath, named by Hatch, naturally followed his direction. Martin Scheibner, a long, white-whiskered veteran of the Civil War, was named as Draper’s successor. But it was worse than handling a drove of wild horses. The venerable professor soon bowed out of the scene. It was not until the advent of Professor  James E. Bryan that something like peace came. Bryan's firm hand plus extraordinary ability and a determination not to surrender despite scholastic bedlam finally won.

But even yet, old friends of “Drape's” who knew him in Fetters or in the makeshift “high school” have not forgotten the bitterness, have not forgiven the shabby way in which that fine Southern gentleman was treated. I recall him down at Fetters, sometimes with his setters on which he placed much store; often with a humorous story, which probably didn’t contribute to strict school, discipline but which certainly left fragrant memories of days long ago.

C.S. Magrath - Martin Scheibner - Fuhrman Family - Lichtenstein Family