CAMDEN, NEW JERSEY
TIME CAPSULE -
June 1858
THE CAMDEN MUTUAL INSURANCE ASSOCIATION
Southwest Corner of Fifth and Federal Streets
In September of 2005, workmen employed by the FFC Construction Company of Gloucester City NJ were instructed to erect a fence at the south-west corner of Fifth and Federal as a safety precaution for pedestrians, as the recently installed River Line light rail tracks pass by the intersection. The workers were using a large auger to dig a hole for one of the fenceposts to be installed. At one point in the installation, the auger struck a metal box. The box, made of lead and sealed by having its seams welded, was penetrated. The workers looked at the contents, and seeing old newspapers and other artifacts, turned the box over to Mr. James Ferry, the owner of the company. Mr. Ferry, whom I was acquainted with professionally but had only by telephone, mentioned the discovery to a mutual friend, Ed Neumann, who thought that it would be a good idea to copy as much of the printed material as possible for inclusion on this website. Mr. Ferry was in agreement. Due to circumstances beyond everyone's control, It was not until the first week of June 2006 that the contents of the box the were undamaged were turned over to me to be scanned for the Internet. Upon examination, I determined that the time capsule was buried in June of 1858, when the new building of the Camden Mutual Insurance Association was dedicated at the southwest corner of Fifth and Federal Streets. In 1881 the business was renamed the Camden Fire Insurance Association. This building stood for about 40 years, and was replaced by a new building designed by architect Arthur Truscott, brother of then Association vice-president J. Lynn Truscott. The new building, known as the Camden Fire Insurance building, stood for about 100 years before being razed. To give some context to the contents of the time capsule and the men who assembled its contents and buried it 148 years ago, I am first reprinting here the 1914 "Historical Sketch" of the Camden Fire Insurance Association, compiled by B.F. Bibighaus. Please contact me by e-mail with any comments or questions. Phil
Cohen |
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These
arms, with the exception of the date, 1841, CAMDEN FIRE INSURANCE ASSOCIATION CAMDEN, NEW JERSEY
Camden, New Jersey- from which the Association takes its name- was named after Earl Camden, Lord Chancellor of England. The Earl's friendship for the American Colonists and his strong opposition to their unjust taxation by the English Parliament, made him very popular in this country. In the thirteen original Colonies, there were nine towns that bore his name. COMPILED BY B. F. BIBIGHAUS PRESS
OF KETTERLINUS,
LITTLE over a hundred years ago Camden was a quiet village of ferrymen and farmers. First settled in 1681- a year before Penn - across the river made his treaty with the Indians- around the old houses and roads of the little hamlet clustered the staid legends of Colonial days. The place bore the impress of the Revolution; there were memories of gallant Pulaski, Mad Anthony Wayne, of Franklin, of the great First President. And yet, with all its age, Camden was quaintly primitive. So much so, that for fire protection it still relied solely upon a few pumps, wells and buckets, and the unorganized valor of its inhabitants. But
about 1810 neither buckets nor valor seemed quite adequate. People asked
doubtfully "Is not more needed?" and lengthily the
philosophers of the village store debated the question. Some said
"No," more said "Yes;" many pipes went out,
forgotten in the heat of the discussion. Finally, while the sages still
argued, the leading men formed themselves into a fire company, the
"Perseverance," bought from a noted maker a tiny hand engine,
and slept more lightly on nights
awaiting a fire. Soon it came. "Nobly and generously did our little
band of Firemen tug at their engine, meeting the foe at every point,
with a determination and decision worthy of all praise, and the
gratifying sight was soon presented of the mastery of man over the
devouring element." In other words, the Perseverance Fire Company
mightily distinguished Itself before the admiring wives and sweethearts
and envious fellow villagers; it promptly became a town institution. More fires came, were perspiringly played upon and extinguished, and as that persevering company continued its good work, the attention of certain of its members was drawn more and more to the subject of fire insurance. If they struggled to extinguish fires, surely they should reap the benefits of insuring against loss by fire; and so reasoning, these members planned and in 1832 had chartered" The Camden Insurance Company." "Such a company," the charter naively stated, "would tend to the great convenience of the inhabitants of Camden, and would confine at home, a source of wealth which is yearly carried into another State." Perhaps the canny public doubted the convenience or else considered this source of wealth too elusive to be confined at home. At any rate, the capital of fifty thousand dollars was not subscribed and the company could not be organized. * But
a definite start had been made and as the city grew and fires became
more frequent and losses heavier, those farsighted members of the
Perseverance Fire Company became more firmly convinced of the
feasibility and the need of a
local insurance company. But their associates in the first venture had
lost faith; Camden, moreover, had entered upon an era of railroad
development, and it proved impossible to interest new men or capital.
Not until the stock plan was abandoned and a mutual company proposed was
encouragement met with, and even then the work proceeded slowly. At last, on the night of January 12, 1841, in the old colonial Ferry House a building made more noteworthy by a visit from David Crockett some months before his heroic death in the Alamo those persevering men held a public meeting. The weather was unseasonable, the night drizzly and depressing; the proposal was to share losses rather than gains; there was no prospect of direct profit and although everyone likely to be interested had been personally invited, the meeting was poorly attended. There was very little interest shown, very little encouragement given to proceed. But the spirit of Crockett was upon the men who had called that meeting; they were sure they were right, they went ahead. Gradually their enthusiasm was communicated to the others, and before adjournment the formation of a mutual company was definitely decided upon. Accordingly, in the weekly newspaper a little later, tucked in between notices of a stray cow and a new mud-dike, there appeared the modest proposal to incorporate the" Camden Mutual Insurance Company." In March the Legislature granted the charter, and the first policy was issued in April.
The Association’s second policy
covered $800 on It
was a peculiarly humble and unpromising beginning. Of the thirteen
Directors, two were ferrymen and innkeepers, one a gunsmith, another a
shoemaker, and a fifth a sausage "weaver." Four had been named
in the charter of 1832; five, including three of the four officers, had
been among the most prominent members of the old Perseverance Fire
Company; but only one, the Secretary, John
K. Cowperthwait, had had any insurance experience and his was very
limited. There was not a dollar of assets. The first expenses were met
by the Directors from their own pockets.
Not until October, six months after starting, did the Secretary make the
first cash payment to the Treasurer. At that time there had been sixteen
policies issued - eleven of them to Directors and one to a local
publisher in exchange for printing-with a total liability of $14,250.
There had been taken in $116.53
for premiums in "notes-of-hand." The expenses paid so far had
barely exceeded five dollars. But in its treasury, in actual cash, the
Association had only seven dollars and twenty cents. The members of that
company had faith; their liability for losses was unlimited. In
the weekly newspapers the Association advertised its readiness to
"insure Buildings and other property on liberal and moderate
terms;" and the Secretary at all times, whether at home, or on the
street, or in his general store (the stock of which he sold "on
reasonable terms or exchanged for Country Produce"), stood ready to
receive applications for insurance. He laboriously wrote the policies by
hand, stamped them with the Association's seal, made proper copies in
the policy register, For
a year or so the Secretary spent more time with the minute book than he
did in policy-writing. Monthly, the Directors held their meetings in the
old Ferry House and there seated around the long table or, in the
winter, clustered about the great fireplace, they had many grave and
serious discussions. Questions regarding the "Bye-Laws," the
acceptance of "notes-of-hand" in payment for premiums, changes
in the policy conditions, the collection (at the rate of twenty-five
cents for each night missed) of fines from absent Directors; all these
were weightily pondered. But chiefly they discussed the various
applications for insurance referred to them by the Secretary. Underwriting
to those early Directors was a more or less easy matter. They were
not troubled by intricate forms or complicated rate schedules; they had no
bother of clauses or stamping bureaus; no shrewdly subtle brokers or
ambitious State Legislatures to contend with. Risks for them divided
naturally into two classes: " ordinary" and
"extraordinary." "Ordinary" risks- a very
comprehensive class they insured, buildings and contents, at an annual
rate of twenty-five cents per hundred dollars if brick, and thirty-five
cents if frame. "Extraordinary" risks were either written at an
excess rate or declined. The old minute book gives striking glimpses of
these transactions. For
instance: "Augustus J. Peasley
applied to know on what conditions the Association would insure his
Dwelling House, Bark-House, Currying Shop, stock of leather, Barn, etc.,
situate in the Township of Greenwich. On motion it was resolved they would
insure the above named property, except the Barn, at the usual established
premium and the Barn at one per cent per annum." Again, "The
President stated to the Board that himself and the Surveyor had been and
viewed the Houses and other property of Mr. Hart of Tetamacon, and on a full
examination of the same thought it no more than an ordinary risk,
whereupon on motion it was resolved that the Association insure the same
to such an amount as the Secretary and Surveyor may think proper."
The policy was accordingly issued for $9,900, covering fifteen buildings
of a large estate, and among them, curiously enough in view of the
"ordinary" classification, a brass foundry, a rolling mill and a
forkhandle shop. Not all the questions were of physical hazard.
Insurance on a "Stone Meeting House" was applied for. "The
Secretary was instructed to insure the same for 1/2 of one per cent per
annum .... Unless it be a Mormon church, in that case not to insure it at
all." The
"extraordinary" risks, by all modern standards, were taken at
ridiculously low rates. Farms, grist mills, coach shops, stables,
printing offices, taverns, roadhouses, foundries, tanneries and stocks of
country stores all were insured, but the highest annual rate charged
during the first ten years was only one per cent. That was for a farm barn
unequipped with lightning rods. A country store stock was written at fifty
cents, a frame printing office at thirty-five cents, a brass foundry at
twenty-five cents, a stone grist mill at thirty-five cents, and a frame
coach shop at sixty cents -less than a third, perhaps, of the rates that
would be charged today. But
whatever and however they insured, those Directors did it of their own
free will. Every risk was inspected before the policy was issued, they had
no agents, there were no brokers and they wrote no
"accommodation" lines. So utterly independent were they that
twice they declined to insure properties owned by the President of the
Association himself. They selected their risks and the results approved
their judgment. Occasionally, in the old register, the Secretary
wrote" Burned and Paid For" across some policy entry, but he did
it very rarely. For the first three years of the Association's life there
was not a single loss. It
was fortunate there were none. The total premium income for the first year
was only $147;
for the second, $132 ; for the third, $439. Those premiums went almost
entirely into the assets, but when in 1844 the
first loss came the funds were just sufficient to meet it. After paying
that loss the Association had remaining liabilities of $50,000, and
in its treasury only $35 in cash.
Fate proved kind. The second loss did not come until three years later. Two
losses in seven years: It was most remarkable. Camden was a frame town and
growing rapidly, and in the years from 1840 to
1850 the fire losses were
frequent and heavy. Hardly a year but had its serious blaze, and the
middle years of the decade- the years in which the Association was
struggling for the merest foothold- were marked by series of especially
destructive fires. The town had outgrown its fire protection. The
Perseverance Fire Company that had performed so brilliantly in 1810
had become little more than a
social organization, its members were old, its engine battered and worn,
its house and equipment sadly neglected. The other and younger companies were
scarcely better. Poorly equipped, unorganized, they all made a sorry showing.
An editorial comment on a fire of 1845 gives a vivid picture of prevailing
conditions: As
for our fire department it is a most unique affair. We have two Engines
such as they are. One was on the ground in good season, and filled with
water-but the Branch Pipe could not be found until after a fierce search
among the members' houses. The other Engine was mislaid. The house in
which it had been kept having recently been removed the Engine in the meantime
had been left in a back yard the location of which some members had
forgotten and others had never known. Small
wonder that until 1851 the
Directors made absolutely no distinction between protected and unprotected
property, and that a large part of their time and attention was given to
"stimulating" the engine companies to greater activity. Those
companies needed Eighty-four
percent. of the Association's risks were frame, eighty-seven per cent were
located in Camden. Its eggs, so to speak, were all in one basket and that
basket hung most insecurely. It did not fall. In spite of the peculiar
fire protection, in spite of the low rates and the restricted area of
operation, the company prospered. In ten years its premiums only once
exceeded $800 annually, and for
the period barely totaled $4,900.
Yet on that extremely limited
income the loss ratio was only 34 per cent., while for the decade the net
underwriting profit was 60 per
cent. But
with all this success the Association, in 1852, was
really in a precarious condition. It could not hope for another seven
years as free from loss as the first- the new term, in fact, had begun
with a loss ratio of 140 per cent. for the first year- and the reserves were not accumulating
rapidly enough to stand the drain of steady losses. The policies in force,
"supposed" liabilities the Directors took comfort in calling
them, amounted to $374,000;
the total assets to less than $3,500.
And on its books the Association had a
dozen risks, the burning of anyone of which would have wiped out the
entire funds. Of
this condition the officers were unaware. Back in 1846, when the assets
were only $833, they had written, and sincerely believed, that the
Association was "in a highly prosperous condition," and with the
assets four times greater they saw no reason to change that belief.
Really, they found the present funds embarrassingly large. Especially the
first Treasurer, who, bewildered, in constant trouble with his balances,
was forced to ask for an auditing committee, "his books showing more
money in his hands than the Secretary's did." It was apparent that fresh blood was needed and accordingly the annual election of 1853 replaced all four of the officers. The new men saw clearly the Association's weakness; they realized that for its small business the rates were much too low, and they had not long been in office before they came forward with a revised schedule of ratings that was so drastic in its increases that it met with bitter opposition from the older Directors. Those rates and the more aggressive management speedily put the Association upon a sounder basis. Jonathan Burr, the new Secretary, had had no insurance experience. But he
was a man of ability and he had, in marked degree, the conservative
boldness necessary to the fire underwriter. One of the first policies he
issued was on a country grist mill, while another covered $2,000 on an
unprotected frame ice house. And in 1855, when Atlantic City
was but a barren stretch of sand, when wiseacres were unanimously
condemning the folly of its building and predicting its speedy failure, he
issued a builder's risk policy on the "Mansion House," one of
the very first hotels to be erected there. As a proof of his faith and
courage the amount of that policy was $4,000.
Those risks did not burn. Few did
that Burr accepted. For the thirty-two years during which, as Secretary,
he controlled the underwriting of the company, the average loss ratio was
only 15 per cent. Instinctively, too, Burr had the underwriter's regard for
assets. He realized the importance of accumulation, and in his first
annual report he expressed that realization in enthusiastic polysyllables.
"Should the Association," he wrote, "meet with no more
than average losses, they will in a few years have accumulated a surplus
fund that will enable them to present the most unexceptionable
indemnification."
, To the work of
building up that "surplus fund" Burr and his associates bent
their energies. The Directors' meetings were no longer held in the old
Ferry House. Shortly after his election, Burr was commissioned to have a
sign painted and hung in his general store. The latter now became the Home
Office. There stood the Association's "fire-proof" or safe,
there the applications were received, and there, on the convenient soap
and cracker boxes, the Directors sat each meeting night. As the
Secretary gained in skill and knowledge, fewer questions of underwriting
were referred to the Board. They were occupied now with the investment
and care of the assets. They guarded them well. Proper demands were always
met. Many and generous were the "stimulating" donations made to the worthy volunteer fire companies. But the
improper were sternly
resisted. So zealous
The losses also
took much of their time. Practically all
claims were considered and the adjustments approved by the Board as a
whole, and there were some interesting discussions. For instance, the
Association insured a certain building as a dwelling. That building
burned, and there was suspicion that in willful violation of the policy
conditions it had been occupied as a carpenter shop. Promptly the
Secretary called a special meeting of the Directors; a committee was
appointed to investigate, and after some time the latter made verbal
report. Mr. Crump, the tenant of the burned house, it appeared, had
recently bought some new shutters. Those shutters, when he took them home,
were "in a rough state," but when taken away they were in
a smoother and better condition." The guardedness of that last
phrase is wonderful. Had those shutters aged into Such doubtful cases
were very few in number. The great majority of the losses were honest, and
they were settled quickly and fairly. Justice was the keynote of the work.
The minutes of a special loss meeting of 1854 read: "On motion,
ordered that the Secretary, Surveyor and Treasurer be a committee to
examine into the matter, ascertain the loss, and settle with the assured
in a just manner." That reference to a just settlement may now seem forced and unnecessary. It was not then. During the years 1850- 1860, Philadelphia, just across the river, was said to have more "wild-cat" insurance companies than any other city in the country, and it was a common story of the street there that the promoter of one of those companies, when questioned as to his rates and capital, had asked: "What's a man want with capital, and what's the difference about rates, if he only knows how to adjust a loss?" It was their resentment against and repudiation of the sharp, unfair practices so common in "wild-cat" adjusting that made the Directors of the Association emphasize the justice of their settlements.The premium income grew slowly, the business being
almost entirely local. For eighteen years the company had not a single
agent, though during that time the question of establishing agencies was
repeatedly agitated and twice efforts were made to secure them, the second
time the Directors offering as commission a survey and policy fee of
$1.50, which seems to have been politely declined. Finally, in 1859, the
Association sent out a committee of four who, after some time and labor,
appointed two agents in nearby towns, at
6 per cent commission, with policy and survey fee of $1.50
additional. That mutual company
could not and would not pay high commissions. As its founders had stated,
"it was not a moneymaking scheme." For ten years none of the
officers received a penny of salary. The Secretary charged the assured one
dollar for the policy, the Surveyor charged one dollar for survey. That
was the only pay until 1851,
when the Directors solemnly
voted the Secretary fifty dollars a year with policy fees additional. In
1855 they raised his salary to one hundred dollars; in 1864 to three
hundred; and four years later, when the assets were $54,000,
the Secretary was given five
hundred a year, "The Association to pay for coal and gas used in the
office." No other salaries were paid, and none asked for. There were
no rebates, no dividends, no divisions of the profits, and, aside from a
gold watch presented to the second Treasurer, John S. Read, after sixteen
years of service, no gifts or emoluments of any kind.
As a reward for this self-denial the company steadily grew. In 1858 with much speech-making and rejoicing the directors were enabled to lay the cornerstone of their first office building, a small two-story affair, and to graduate from the cracker-box seats of Burr's store.[NOTE: This is the event which prompted the Time Capsule to be assembled and buried. PMC] In 1861, grown affluent, they purchased cushions for their chairs of state; and in 1869, with assets of $58,000, they decided to change the Association into a stock corporation. It was a natural
move. For twenty-eight years the company had been a mutual
organization; in all that time it had never made an assessment on its
members; its expense and loss ratios for the period had been respectively
only 22 and 25
per cent. But from the first business had been really done on the stock
plan, no premium notes or deposits being required, and, aside from the
liability of members for losses and the absence of capital stock, there
was little to distinguish the Association from a stock company. The first stock was
issued in 1870, being
divided without cost among the members in the proportion their premiums
bore to the assets. There were many interested, and the individual amounts were so small that the work of distribution was
necessarily slow and difficult. In December, 1872, the capital was fixed at $52,855,
and the following year a scrip
dividend raised it to $ 105,730, the net surplus being
$4,275. The change of plan made no difference in the Association's business. It grew peacefully along just as in the mutual days. In fact, not until 1881 was the word "Mutual" dropped from the name and the company given its present title of the Camden Fire Insurance Association. The Directors of the time made no efforts to reach out into other States. Somehow their vision was purely local; they had not the gift of multiplying themselves through agencies and, as a result, for twenty-five years the premium income was practically stationary. But notwithstanding this, the surplus and assets increased steadily as for twenty of those years- from 1870 to 1890- the average loss ratio was less than 12 per cent. So very few were the losses that among the insurance men of the vicinity there grew up a saying: "If you want to fire-proof a house, insure it in the 'Camden Fire.' " Gradually the Association felt the call of wider fields. In 1895 a branch office was opened in Philadelphia, the first agency to be established by the Directors outside the home State. And in 1900, with the thrill of the new century upon it, the Association definitely abandoned its local policy and broadened out into an agency company. The capital and surplus were doubled; J. Lynn Truscott, who had established the Philadelphia agency, became Vice-President and Managing Underwriter,* and the company entered upon a period of splendid growth, a growth remarkable alike for its conservative rapidity and for its soundness. To meet the demands of the larger business the capital was again increased in 19°3, 19°4, 19°9 and 1912, and public confidence in the management of the Association was such that each issue of stock was readily disposed of at twice its par value. By these various issues $500,000 was added to the capital and $500,000 to the surplus, making, all told, a million dollars invested m the company by the stockholders since 1899. In those fourteen years the capItal has become six times greater, standing now at $600,000; the premium income has increased Fifty-One Hundred per cent, and the assets have grown from Two Hundred and Eighty-Seven Thousand to over Three Millions of dollars. And the Association is still going forward. Recent events have clearly shown that in the fire insurance business the day of the company with small capital and surplus has definitely passed. Recognizing this, the stockholders of the Association, at their annual meeting in February of this year (19 14), voted to again increase the capital stock. When this latest increase has been fully effected the Association's capital will be $700,000, and its probable net surplus, over all liabilities, in excess of $900,000. Many things have changed since that drizzly January night of 1841. Business has changed, the nation has changed; ideals, methods, beliefs, all have altered. This company has changed. It has attained a size and scope and power undreamed of by its founders. But with all changes, both in and about it, one thing, one ideal has remained always constant. Today, as in its first days, the Camden Fire Insurance Association strives earnestly to deal with all "in a just manner." |
The Contents of the Time Capsule |
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Soon To Come:
More June 1858 Newspapers from Camden