327 Cooper Street was built in the mid-1850s, and its first residents were the Trimble family. The family passionately supported the Union, and they demonstrated their support on the battlefield and at home.
The father, Joseph Trimble, was an importer of sodium carbonate, a chemical used in the creation of glass. In 1860, he led a household of thirteen people, including Irish and African American domestic servants. Trimble became an early supporter of the Republican Party, and once the war began, he immediately did what he could to support the Union from the homefront. Most notably, in 1862, he served as the president of the Camden Relief Society, a charity organization that collected and distributed funds for families whose husbands were away at war. He hosted at least one meeting in his home. He also served as a lieutenant in Camden’s Home Guard Regiment.
His wife, Sarah, became a leader of the Ladies’ Soldiers’ Aid Society, which collected old clothing to be remade into bandages and other items for the sick and wounded. Like her husband, she invited donations to be sent to their home, turning the building into one of the hubs of Camden’s homefront.
At the start of the war, the couple’s oldest son, Armon, enlisted with NJ’s 3rd Infantry Militia at the start of the war, which was deployed to Washington and guarded trains for Union supplies. In 1862, he reenlisted as a second lieutenant in the US Army’s 3rd Cavalry, a regiment that was fighting Confederates and Native Americans in New Mexico. Before reaching the frontlines, however, he received notice that his services were no longer needed. Many people might have taken such a notice as a blessing, but Armon apparently had an insatiable drive to serve. He later joined an emergency regiment raised to repel Commander Robert E. Lee’s incursion into Pennsylvania at Gettysburg and eventually he applied to be one of the white officers placed in command of US Colored Troops at 22 years old. He received the appointment and was made first lieutenant of the 28th Infantry Regiment. Despite suffering heavy losses in the campaign at Petersburg, Virginia, his regiment was ultimately one of the forces to enter Richmond, the Confederate capital, after it fell.
It is important to note that Armon’s regiment was segregated. Despite Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and the Union’s decision to allow African Americans to fight in the war, the concept of race still dominated the nineteenth century’s mental landscape. Many people were willing to fight to preserve the Union, but when the Civil War also became a fight to emancipate African Americans, support for the war declined. Many were unwilling to fight alongside African Americans, and white officers were appointed due to an unfounded lack of confidence in African American mental capabilities. In Camden County, opposition to the war grew following Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, and racial rhetoric was deployed against Lincoln for his emancipatory war objective. In nearby Philadelphia and New York, hateful thinking even led to instances of racial violence against African American communities.
