Charles T. Humes, Jr.

Captain Charles T. Humes

CHARLES TAYLOR HUMES JR. was born in Camden NJ to Charles T. and Mary Humes. Four years of age at the time of the 1880 Census, he was the oldest child, his brother George having been born in 1879. The elder Humes worked as a spar maker, lumber and shipbuilding both being major sources of employment in Camden at the time. The Humes family lived at 907 Front Street at the time, and would through at least 1889.

During the late 1880s the elder Humes worked as a ship’s carpenter for Rufus G. Wilkins, a Philadelphian who ran a boats for hire business at the foot of York Street, a stone’s throw from the Humes residence. The 1890-1891 Camden City Directory shows that Charles T. Humes Sr. had become a ship’s pilot, and that the family had moved to 90 Erie Street.

Charles T. Humes Jr. joined the Camden police force, and by 1920 had risen to the rank of Captain. At the time of the 1920 Census he lived with his wife Lydia and son Charles L. Humes at 907 North 3rd Street, in the same North Camden neighborhood in which he had grown up. His brother George lived around the corner at 908 North 2nd Street with his wife Ivy and their 10 children. It is likely that the brothers could walk to each others homes by going out their back doors.

In the 1920s, Captain Humes worked in the Camden Police Department’s traffic bureau. In the spring of 1928 he took ill. He spent a month at West Jersey Hospital, and after a two month recuperation he returned to the police force.

When the census was taken in April of 1930, Captain Charles T. Humes wad become a widower. His son, Charles L. Humes had married, was working as a reporter, and then lived with his in-laws at 203 Byron Street. Captain Humes, then 54, was still working as an inspector with the traffic bureau. Brother George, now the father of thirteen children, still lived at 918 North 2nd Street. By May of 1934, he had retired from the police force.

Captain Charles T. Humes died on November 4, 1937. He had been living at 4115 Myrtle Avenue in East Camden. When the 1947 Camden City Directory was compiled his son Charles L. Humes, a journalist, was living at 2924 North Constitution Road in the Yorkship Square neighborhood of Camden. Daughter-in-law Nina Humes was then the secretary to Camden’s Chief of Police. George and Ivy Humes were still at 908 North 2nd Street, a block away from where the Humes brothers were born in the 1870s.

Charles L. Humes had a long and distinguished career as a reporter and columnist for the Camden Courier-Post.


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