CHARLES K. EVERED SCHOOL
Southeast Corner of South 7th Street and Ferry Avenue

The C. K. Evered School was in the Centervill secion of Camden, which became a part of the city in 1871 when old Newton Township was dissolved and annexed to Camden, creating the Seventh and Eighth Wards. The new territory grew rapidly in population. 

In 1887 Camden's Board of Education learned that “the Central Avenue Schoolhouse [should] be abandoned, because of the building being unsafe and unfit for school. . .and that a four room school house be built on the same ground; and that the Board sell the old building to the highest bidder. ”

Subsequently, the board purchased land adjoining the Central Avenue School, and officially closed and abandoned the school on June 24, 1887. About the same time, the Manufacturer’s Land and Improvement Company offered to donate three lots situated on Ferry Road (now Ferry Avenue), at the corner of Seventh Street, for a schoolhouse. The board accepted the deeds to the property, and approved plans for building a schoolhouse there. The board also approved architect Stephen D. Button’s universal architectural plan for an eight-room schoolhouse; thus, allowing them to build many eight-room schoolhouses, using the same schematic each time. They expected to build one school on Pine Street, east of Eighth Street; one on the Fifth and York Streets property, which they obtained in August 1887; and one in the eighth ward, on land donated by Manufacturer’s Land and Improvement Company.

The board received a petition “signed by members of the Board from the 4th School District and from numerous leading citizens of the 8th Ward,” asking the board to name the new eighth ward school, located at Seventh Street and Ferry Road, the Charles K. Evered Schoolhouse. They adopted the name and the Evered School opened on January 23, 1888. The board transferred Mary E. Young from the old Ferry Road School, and she became the first boys’ department principal, Jennie H. James became the first girls’ department principal.

Charles K. Evered was the only son of Mary and Joseph G. Evered. Charles was born in Michigan in 1875, and died in Camden on August 13, 1886. At the time of his death, Charles was just ten years old. During the Civil War, Joseph Evered enlisted in Grand Rapids, and eventually became a first sergeant of Co. A, 3rd Regiment of the Michigan Volunteers. Joseph was a one-term member of the board of education, from 1880 to 1883, representing the eighth ward as a Democrat. Why members of the fourth school district, and the eighth ward proposed naming the school after this ten-year old boy, at a time when the death of a child was not uncommon, is lost to history, but it appears that Joseph Evered apparently took a great interest in educational affairs in his neighbor- hoood and was well respected for his efforts. Charles and his parents are interred in the Evergreen Cemetery. His younger brother, Carl R. Evered, born in 1893, ran a successful real estate business in Camden for many years. 

The Evered School's students participated in one of the first kindergarten classes in Camden in the 1910-1911 school year when the Trinity Church held classes.

The Evered School closed June 30, 1935, and the board permanently closed the Benjamin C. Beideman School, whose condition was just as bad, on the same day. A garage at the rear of the school building was used for defense industry training during World War II..

Philadelphia Inquirer - January 16, 1888


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