Monday, June 25, 2012

Dynamite in the Neighborhood 1903

It may have been just a coincidence, but in the years immediately after this incident, East Orange city leaders began pushing for well-equipped city playgrounds with one expressed purpose being to get boys off the streets.  

From The Evening World, December 24, 1903

Principal Coe was principal of Columbian School for 44 years and also a long time resident of the Stockton neighborhood.


Frank Seymour Coe, Columbian School principal

Frank S Coe was principal of Columbian School for 44 years from the school's opening in 1893 to his retirement in 1938.

Frank Coe was born December 11, 1870 in Oswego, NY,  graduated from Oswego Normal School in 1893, and then took the position of principal at the new Columbian School. He later attended NYU part-time and graduated in June 1908 with a Bachelor of Science in Pedagogy.

He married Fannie Amelia Burghardt (born 9/4/1869) in 1898. In 1900 Mr Coe was living as a boarder at 40 N. Grove St, East Orange, near the intersection of the RR and Grove St. By 1910 he and his family were living at 103 Greenwood Avenue diagonally across from Stockton School. A short time later the family moved to 136 William St also diagonally across from Stockton and was still there in 1940. Mr Coe passed away on June 30, 1942.



Above: from The Oswego Daily Palladium, June 19, 1893


Above: View is looking north on Greenwood Ave with William crossing in front of photographer. Stockton School is to photographer's right. George Moon, his wife, and several generations of family lived in the big house on the corner for many years. Frank Coe (principal of Columbian School from 1893 to 1938) lived in the house to the left of the Moon house from the early 1900's to his death about 1941.



Above: 1940 census

Below: 1930 census 

Below: 1920 census (note that "Coe" has been misindexed  as "Cal" in Ancestry.com)


Below: 1910 census; Miss Olyensky is listed as 'servant"