When you think about great New Jersey maritime disasters, your mind usually pictures a deserted beach in a raging nor’easter. But one of the worst on record took place not off the east coast of the state, but the west. The year was 1856; the nation was sliding toward Civil War. Kansas was “bleeding,” and the new Republican Party was about to run its first candidate for president.

But for one South Jersey town, Camden, it was a boom time. As Philadelphia was growing in importance, the suburbs…