Charles
H.
Errickson

CHARLES H. ERRICKSON was born in New Jersey around 1889 to Herman and Kate Errickson. The family was living at 279 Walnut Street at the time of the 1910 census and was still there 10 years later. Herman Errickson was then working as a shoemaker in a shoe factory. Besides Charles, known as "Charlie", there was younger brother George and four sisters, Lillie, Anna, Mary, and Sadie. Charlie Errickson, the 20 years of age, was working as a bartender in a saloon. He married shortly thereafter. When America entered World War I, he was among those who served.

By 1930 Charles Errickson was a member of the Camden Fire Department. At the time of the Census, in April of that year, he was still married, but at that time was renting a room at 574 Royden Street, where a widow, Emma Socwill, let rooms. He moved sometime thereafter to 579 Line Street, where the New Jersey Bell Telephone Directory shows him residing in 1936. 

By October of 1936, Charles Errickson had attained the rank of Battalion Chief. He had been promoted to Deputy Chief of the Camden Fire Department by the spring of 1942. The 1947 City Directory indicates he still resided at 579 Line Street. He is not listed in the 1956 New Jersey Bell Telephone Directory.

FIRE CHIEF RESCUES SAVINGS OF WOMAN
SON'S PHOTOGRAPHIC EQUIPMENT DESTROYED ON EVE OF STARTING WORK

The savings of a widow were saved last night by Battalion Chief Charles Errickson as flames destroyed a photographic studio in her home at 939 Newton Avenue.

Erickson worked his way through dense smoke at the home of Mrs. Carrie C. Perkinpine to get her savings in a small box in a second story bedroom.

Mrs. Perkinpine lived with her son, Leonard J. Farrar, who has been unemployed two years. He was to have started work as a photographer next Monday but all of his equipment, including a camera, were lost in the fire.

“I had banked the furnace in the cellar for the night and was reading in the dining room when I heard a crackling noise," Mrs. Perkinpine said. "I opened the cellar door and was nearly overcome by a gust of smoke.”

She ran to the home of neighbors across the street and they called the fire department. Four companies responded under Errickson. The fire spread to the photographic studio set up in the cellar by Farrar and destroyed his developing and enlarging equipment as well as the camera. Firemen were unable to account for the origin of the blaze unless sparks from the furnace ignited a pile of rubbish in the cellar. The tire was confined to the cellar although the upper rooms were damaged by smoke.

Three other families were forced to flee their homes because of smoke from the Perkinpine home.

City Commissioner Mary W. Kobus, recovering at her home from an accidental fall in July, is shown signing the Fire Prevention Week proclamation of the Camden County Fire Chiefs Association, with Battalion Chief Charles Erickson, of the city fire department looking on. The above is the first newspaper picture of Mrs. Kobus since the accident.