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As you are biking by the old Jackson Manufacturing plant on South Cameron Street, across Cameron you’ll see houses that might remind you of “Council houses” you’ve seen in England. These Tudor style houses were built in 1906 by James Donald Cameron, a local businessman who served as President Grant’s Secretary of War in 1886-87 and then as Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senator from 1877 to 1897. His father, Simon Cameron, held the same positions as Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of War and served in the Senate from 1867 until his son succeeded him.

The May 5, 1906 edition of the Harrisburg Daily Independent had a headline “CAMERON HOUSES TO BE FINISHED SOON.” The article said the fifty houses erected by “former Senator J.D. Cameron” would be finished within a month. “They are of brick, some with cement gables, are two, two-and-a-half, and three stories in size, and were designed by Parker & Thomas of Boston, the grounds being laid out by Landscape Architect [Warren H.] Manning, who has had much to do with the beautifying of Harrisburg in the way of parks, etc.”

The article goes on to say, “The interiors are hard wood finish, and the cheapest rented houses have cellar, hallway, parlor, dining room, kitchen, pantry, four bed rooms and a bathroom. Cement sidewalks are to be laid, and in places the banks are sloped and graded and planted with trailing vines. The streets are macadamized, and as they all slope, they will be free of mud.”

You’ll still find the trailing vines on slopes and if you’re curious for a closer look, the houses line a portion of 12^th Street and all of Allison Street and Cameron Terrace. In 1906 the rentals started at $18 per month and were found very attractive to folks who worked at the Cameron-owned Elliot Fisher Typewriter Company located just across Cameron Street. There’s a kiosk with information about Elliot Fisher adjacent to the Capital Area Greenbelt’s building at Cameron & Elliot Streets.