James
E.
Tatem

JAMES E. TATEM was born in Camden in May of 1876 to William A. and Anna Emley Tatem. There were at least two older siblings, a sister and a brother, and a younger brother in the family, which lived in 1880 at 101 North 7th Street. William Tatem was then a produce dealer. Sadly, he had passed away by 1887. The family was then living at 422 Henry Street in South Camden. The 1890-1891 Directory shows the Tatems at 619 South 5th Street, where older brother Edward Tatem also conducted a milk business. At the age of 24 James Tatem had married Ella Lummis. The couple resided with her parents, at 435 Beckett Street at the time of the 1900 Census. He had by this time already joined Camden's police force.

James Tatem joined Camden's police department in 1898, an appointee of Mayor Cooper B. Hatch. He managed to avoid being discharged when Democrat mayor Joseph Nowrey was elected. When the Republicans returned to City Hall in 1905, new Mayor Charles Ellis saw "Smilin' Jimmy's" ability to calm a troubled situation, and by 1910 he was promoted to sergeant and by 1920 to captain. For much of Ellis' term James Tatem served as an an aide to the Mayor. He also served as a Justice of the Peace in the early 1920s. 

James Tatem remained on with the Camden police department when Mayor Ellis retired to become Postmaster in 1922. The following year Victor King was elected mayor. King also took a liking to the ever-diplomatic Tatem, and saw that he was appointed Captain of the newly created traffic bureau. When Commissioner Frank Hitchner, then the director of public safety, fired Chief Edward S. Hyde, Tatem was chosen to be the new Chief.

James Tatem faced a daunting challenge in his new post, one that in retrospect he may not have been prepared for- not that many police officers of his generation were. Commissioner. He was an officer who came up in the 1890s and 1900s faced with the new organized crime model that took hold in America when Prohibition was instituted in 1919. That and his dalliance with the Democratic Mayor King foretold Chief Tatem's replacement. After a shooting in a downtown bar, the Bluebird Cafe, in late 1927, Commissioner David S. Rhone, the new director of public safety, took a more active role in the affairs of the department. Finally, on March 2, 1928 Mayor Winfield S. Price replaced Chief Tatem, appointing Captain Lewis H. Stehr Jr. as acting Chief of Police. This was a surprise to many, who had assumed that the popular Chief Charles T. Humes would get the post. James Tatem then retired on a full pension. It is worth noting, however, that his service to the city was recognized in that he had been granted a raise on March 1, 1928 which had the effect of locking in his pension at a higher amount. 

The marriage between of James and Ella Tatem appears to have been a stormy one. By 1910 the couple had separated, and he appears to never have remarried. He then lived with his mother, grandmother Elizabeth Emley, widowed sister Mary Gahan, and nephew Edward at 535 South 5th Street. James Tatem would remain at this address into the 1920s. James Tatem was still living in Camden with his sister as late as April of 1930. By this time they were living at 615 South 5th Street, next door to Camden firefighter Leonard Megee, and on the same block where he had resided as a boy.  

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