I believe the two individuals in the photograph may be Anna and Clarence Strader, although I have no way of knowing for certain. There are two reasons that have led me to this conclusion: When my grandmother, Dorothy Scott (granddaughter of Anna and Clarence) gave me this photo, she told me that her grandmother was a milliner and operated a general store. Secondly, through my research, I learned that Anna and Clarence owned a building at 11 High Street in Newton, New Jersey. According to a website on the history of Newton, NJ, <http://newtonnj.net/Pages/highstreetongreen.htm> Anna bought a building in downtown Newton. “On July 19, 1880, James L. Decker, Sheriff, conveyed William Drake’s house and lot on High Street to Charles J. Roe. In the first week of March 1881, work began on the building that Charles Roe planned to erect on the site of the Drake House destroyed by fire a few months earlier. By May 11, 1881, bricklayers were erecting the walls for Charles Roe’s new brick building on the Drake property. In August 1881, Charles C. Hoff, of Lambertville, leased the new store room of Charles Roe, two doors above the Court House, and opened a fancy and millinery goods business. In December 1883, the Roe building was occupied by “four or five lawyers … besides the millinery store of E. & H. Rorbach.”
11 High Street, Newton, New Jersey, the building that Anna and Clarence Strader once owned together.
Charles Roe sold his brick building and lot at 11 High Street to Anna C. Strader, wife of Clarence Strader, on March 1, 1886. She immediately opened a “new millinery store, in the new brick building above the Court House,” offering the “new Spring styles.” Annie Strader and her husband, Clarence L. Strader, conveyed the property to Margaret Cortelyou on December 20, 1892.
