Significance

This is the former site of the Raymond Academy, a private school that operated from 1886 to 1898. The proprietor, Ida Northrop, was the niece of New York multimillionaire Jay Gould, who financed the school and an adjacent house for the Northrop family. Well-to-do Camden families sent their young sons here to prepare for elite boarding schools in Philadelphia. Their daughters continued to advanced courses, including preparation for college.

History

The story of Raymond Academy begins with Jay Gould’s older sister, Sarah B. Northrop. In the late 1870s, as a widow raising eight children, she moved to Camden. An opportunity for Sarah’s oldest daughter, Ida, to teach kindergarten in Camden prompted the family’s move from Hackettstown, New Jersey.

Kindergarten was then gaining in popularity in the United States. Ida, who had completed at least one year at Vassar College, would have been a well-qualified teacher. By 1880, she began to advertise herself as an independent kindergarten teacher in her family’s rowhouse at 519 Linden Street (a block later replaced by the Benjamin Franklin Bridge approach). Over the next five years she expanded her enterprise into a private day school for older children as well, with about seventy pupils and four teachers.

Ida Northrop was no doubt encouraged by her mother, who had been a teacher prior to her marriage. She also attracted material support from her famous uncle, who proposed erecting a new building where the school could expand. Gould viewed the project as an investment in providing long-term economic security for his sister and her family.

In 1886, Jay Gould financed an impressive stone house (421 Penn Street) and adjoined school building (419 Penn Street) for the Northrop family in the 400 block of Penn Street. The structures stood across the street from the lawn of the finest house in the neighborhood, the Ayer family mansion at 406 Penn Street (now the Rutgers—Camden Admissions Office). Ida had free reign to design the school building, which had a first floor with partitions that could be opened to create an auditorium and a second floor with five classrooms.

Raymond Academy

Ida Northrop named her new school Raymond Academy, in honor of former Vassar College President John H. Raymond. While her school did not have a formal connection with Vassar, Northrop intended to prepare young women to advance to Vassar or other colleges. To aid in the mission, she hired Vassar graduate Eva March Tappan as a teacher and assistant principal. Other teachers were similarly qualified with college degrees, teacher preparation courses, or achievements in the arts.

Raymond Academy still offered kindergarten, along with elementary and intermediate grades for boys and girls. From that point, boys left to attend elite Philadelphia academies like Penn Charter and Friends’ Central. Girls could continue to advanced academic instruction, including preparation for college. Young women followed this path to Vassar, Swarthmore, Mt. Holyoke, and other prestigious institutions.

The school also instilled habits of philanthropy in its privileged students. Beginning in its first year of operation, the school hosted “street waifs” for a Thanksgiving dinner, and even the kindergarteners raised funds for orphans of the Camden Home for Friendless Children and the West Jersey Orphanage.

Transition

Raymond Academy showed every sign of success, enrolling between sixty and one hundred or more students each year. However, in the early 1890s, Ida Northrop’s health faltered. Without disclosing her condition, she announced that she would have to give up her role as teacher and principal. She assured her students and their parents that the school would continue.

The 1894 school year opened with a new principal with impressive credentials. Helen Tuxbury, a graduate of Smith College, also had a master’s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She personally took on the teaching of science, and the school instituted a “scientific” track for the older girls.

The End

Raymond Academy operated long enough for its earliest kindergarteners to reach their college years. However, in 1898, Helen Tuxbury received a job offer to head the science and mathematics department at a private school in Philadelphia. This time, there was no successor. The Camden Daily Telegram noted solemnly, “A Popular Educational Institution Passes Into History.”

For a few months, a music school moved into the former Raymond Academy. But in 1899, the school building and the adjacent house at 421 Penn Street had a new owner. J.R. Eastlack, a prominent Camden grocer, bought the property because of the house, which the Daily Telegram described as “one of the most desirable in the northern residence part of Camden.” He soon demolished the school building, although the house remained standing. In 1955, Rutgers University acquired the lots for the first phase of the Camden campus library.