In 1894 George W. Day bought from Squire Moss the
only shoemaker shop in Haddonfield which was located at 101 E. Kings
Highway.
The price was $200. A shoemaker shop in those days meant the
actual
building of shoes as well as the repairing of them. All the work
was done by hand. The shop, when it later was moved to 205 E.
Main
Street, became the gathering spot for the few remaining Civil War
veterans
in town. Among those to be remembered are Billy Jones, Bill
Oakley,
Squire Moss, G. W. Murphy, Orthy Pete, Mr. Anthony. Another
visitor,
although not a veteran, but always present, was the first Mayor
Haddonfield,
Mayor Roberts, who lived in the old farmhouse which still stands on
Kings
Highway East across from Greenfield Hall. These old gentlemen got
together every day with their yarns before the Civil War. Billy
Jones
was the last remaining Civil War veteran in town. He died in
1932.
One day a Philadelphia newspaper photographer took a picture of the
shoemaker
and his bench in the background. Two Haddonfield couples on
vacation
in California, Mr. & Mrs. Street and Mr. & Mrs. Philip Wilson,
upon their return brought with them copies of a western newspaper which
had carried the picture and the story. A wire service had picked
up the human interest story and circulated it throughout the United
States.
Mr. Wilson, then a Camden Bank President, was the brother of Admiral
Wilson
after whom the Boulevard in Camden was named. You knew Helen
Louise
Carroll? Her mother married Phil Wilson.
