February 21, 1904: Man Claiming Escape from Asylum for the Insane Waiting Admission to One

By Margaret Leidy Harner from her book One Day at a Time: A Social History of Boyertown, PA.

February 21, 1904: A crazy man, about 45 years old, has drifted into Boyertown, and he is being kept in Fort Lehman to prevent him getting into mischief. He gave his name as James A. Llewellyn when he was found wandering the borough streets, acting in a very strange manner.

Officer Charles Kline took him to the lock-up and Burgess Reuben Boyer Rhoads gave him a hearing. He said he had escaped from the Norristown Insane Asylum. Inquiry at that institution contradicted that account; they had no James A. Llewellyn and no inmate had escaped from there recently.

Rhoads did not think it safe to let him go, so he has been committed to the Berks County jail until authorities can place him in an insane asylum.

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