August 15, 1900: Henry Bauer Jailed for Domestic Violence

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

August 15, 1900: Henry Bauer, of Barto, arrived home 5:00 on Sunday morning in a drunken frenzy to beat his wife into an unrecognizable mass of facial bruises and serious injuries all over her body. He also threw one of his children down a steep embankment on the side of their house. The little girl escaped his clutches and ran to a neighbor’s house, who called the police.

Constables Fronheiser and Groff responded to apprehend Bauer, and entered into an exciting chase with the desperate husband through a corn field, over a barbed wire fence and into a creek, where Fronheiser caught him, threw him to the ground and cuffed him.

A doctor was sent for, and he dressed Mrs. Bauer’s injuries and pronounced her in critical condition. Bauer was committed to jail in default of bail.

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