Same Wicker, Same Chicken Wire, Different Baby

…and a street address thanks to Jerseyman!

Last week I posted another photograph shot by John Capewell in the same place, from the same position as this week’s photo but of a different child. I just thought they were cute pictures and posted them hoping somebody would recognize a baby picture of a grand or great grandparent. I assumed it was shot in Capewell’s home town of Westville, New Jersey, but the INCREDIBLE Jerseyman provided information I did not think was possible!

In the comments last week, Jerseyman wrote this:

Capewell shot this photograph along side the family homestead at 458 Kaighns Avenue in Camden. The wall and square smokestack visible at the corner of the facade belongs to the Toone and Hollinshed department store, located the northwest corner of Kaighns Avenue and Broadway. So, it is likely that the wee one is a family member.

How does he do it?!

Jerseyman had identified the same house in a post I put up earlier. When I asked how he figured out the location, he shed a little light on the process:

To verify the location, I observed the urban buildings surrounding the rear yard, checked Camden City Directories (after assuming the view was in Camden) and then checked the 1906 Sanborn Map Company fire insurance map for that address on which everything matches perfectly!

Thanks, Jerseyman! I always feel like one of the bit part players at the end of an episode of The Lone Ranger when Jerseyman visits the site. Who was that masked man?

Apparently the Capewells once lived in Camden, New Jersey and moved southward eventually settling in Westville.

The Toone and Hollinshed Department Store was a dry goods and notions store run by partners Issac Toone and Thomas Hollinshed and it sold “dry goods, carpets, hats, caps, clothing and boots and shoes.” This site contains several interesting articles about Issac Toone, his store, Camden in his day and a number of interesting asides including a notorious murder case in which Toone was a member of the jury.

Here’s this week’s entire glass negative which is a little clearer than last week:

About The Capewell Glass Negative Collection

The Capewell Glass Negative Collection is a series of about 200 5-inch by 7-inch glass negatives shot early in the 20th Century by John Batt Capewell (1878-1951) of Westville, New Jersey. John passed the negatives down to his son Henry who left them in his wife’s possession upon his passing. Henry’s widow didn’t know what to do with them and didn’t particularly want them so she offered them to my Dad who couldn’t turn down anything. Ultimately I wound up with them and thought I would one day have photographic prints struck from them. That didn’t happen, but I came up with the digital workaround of placing the negatives on a lightbox and rephotographing them with a digital camera. The “processing” was then done on a computer with image editing software. They came out better than I thought they would so I thought I would show them off to the world on this site. Many of these pictures have not been seen in a century, and I’m proud to be presenting them today.

At first, I did not know who the people were in the photographs. I have a box of ephemera that accompanied the negatives and snagged a few clues from that as far as the Capewell name. I did some research on the internet and had a few false starts and wrong turns, but the readers of these posts have provided a remarkable amount of research and detail. I’m amazed at what people have turned up sifting through public records and such!

Last Week: Wicker, Baby, Chicken Wire