Every week or two, we will look at a different house or group of houses of Maple Shade.
22 Stiles Avenue said by the Tax Assessor's Office to be a 1952 home. The owner came to the 4th of July Maple Shade Historical Society Open House at the Train Station. He asked how he could find out the real date which he thought to be in the 1920s because he found traces that it once had the old knob and tube electrical wiring.
22 Stiles Avenue on a 1923 Sanborn Map about to be moved to its new foundation. |
22 Stiles Avenue was a barn or stable prob. dating to the late 1800s Charles Zane farm. Seen here on a 1907 G.M. Hopkins Atlas map. |
A member of the Maple Shade Historical Society wanted to know more about his house on N. Cedar Avenue.
I did a full Title Chain for him on it, as I was going to the County Clerk's anyway that day.
One of 4 English Cottage Homes on N. Cedar Ave. |
Detail from a Oct. 1929 Sanborn map. |
In brief-
The Phoenix Corporation, owners and builders, submitted the plan of "Maple Shade Heights" on June 3, 1924.
The subdivision is on the north side of East Main Street between Pine Ave. to North Boulevard Ave. The Phoenix Corporation took title to the tract on June 24, 1924. The land was sold to them by Theodore C. Sauselein.
In July of 1927, the Cutler Company purchased lots 66, 67, 68, 69, and 70 from the Phoenix Corporation. In October of 1927, 4 or all 5 of these lots were sold to the Fister Brothers Company. I don't know all the proceedures but a survey was made by Walter H. MacNamara on June 18, 1928. The lots were also resurveyed March 1, 1930.
So... sometime between October 1927 and October of 1929 (Sanborn map) the Fister Brothers Company built 4, what I would term, "English Cottage" style homes of cinder block construction. (Fred Fister did alot of cinder block and brick work.)
The houses were completed too close to the beginning of the Great Depression. In Jan. 1930, at least 3 of the 4 homes were sold at a Sheriff Sale and were purchased by the Prudential Insurance Company of America. They then were sold at $2800 dollars each, with mortgages from Prudential. (Pre Depression, I think they would have fetched over $4000.) They then flip flopped back and forth between several owners and The Prudential Insurance Company of America which held the mortgages. It wasn't until 1937 that the house I researched primarily was sold to a financially stable home owner who kept it.