April 25, 1892: John Zuber Comes to Collect, Ends in Lock-up for Safe Keeping

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

April 25, 1892: John Zuber, the handsome former organist at St. John’s is back in town after his second vanishing act on November 23 last year. He needed money and has come to collect what he said Daniel Brumbach owed him from the sale of his organ to fund his elopement with Della Wentzel, a member of his choir. 

Instead of paying off, Brumbach got a warrant for Zuber’s arrest because the organ was his wife’s property which he sold to Brumbach under false pretenses. Brumbach had since returned the organ to Zuber’s wife and wanted to get back the down payment money he had given Zuber.

The citizens of Boyertown were irate when Zuber took off in November, leaving his wife and two children penniless. He had even taken the money out of his children’s piggy banks. It was not his first disappearance; he had taken off in March 1890, to avoid his creditors, but his wife and St. John’s had taken him back on his promise to behave!

The Boyertown constable apprehended him in a tavern and was taking him to the lock-up when a large crowd surrounded them, shouting “Hang him Lynch him….” Zuber spent the night in protective custody in jail and was send back to Reading the next morning, never again to show his face in Boyertown, but not staying out of trouble.

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