It has been widely reported that John F. Betz of Philadelphia was the partner and co-owner of the Lembeck and Betz brewery of Jersey City, New Jersey. Lembeck’s partner was John Betz but it seems, from the two obituaries below, that there were indeed two men with the same name.
John Betz of Lembeck and Betz
John Betz, of the brewery of Lembeck & Betz, of Jersey City, N.J., died suddenly December 31st (1900). Betz was a native of Wuertemberg and about 70 years old. Shortly after his arrival in the United States he started an ale brewery in New York City. In 1869 he settled in Jersey City, where the firm of Lembeck & Betz was founded, which in the course of time became one of the big breweries in that neighborhood. Betz had charge of the ale department while his partner Lembeck devoted his attention to the production of lager beer. Betz leaves a widow and three children.
-American Brewer’s Review, volume 15, page 334.
John F. Betz of Philadelphia
After having suffered for six months from rheumatic ailment which finally attacked his heart, John F. Betz died in Philadelphia, January 16 (1908), surrounded by the members of his family, amongst them his son and grandson, who bear his name, and in whose hands has rested for the last years the management of the immense brewery interests of which the older Betz was originally the proprietor.
John F. Betz’s career was full of contrasts. He began with practically no money of his own, and he died possessing at least $15,000,000. Some of his friends claim that his estate is much larger, the fact being that Betz himself hardly knew the exact amount of his wealth.
Betz was born in Moehringen, Wuertemberg, 77 years ago, and was brought to this country when a baby. His father started a little grocery store in Pottsville, Pa., and was at one time proprietor of a saloon in that town. Young Betz was initiated into business life in the parental store and at the same time acted as a driver for a team of mules hauling a canal boat loaded with coal, in which article his father speculated according to the custom of the time. Once he fell from the mule on which he was riding and was nearly drowned in the waters of the Rapidan canal.
When 13 years of age Betz entered a brewery owned by D.G. Yuengling, a relative of his, in Pottsville. During the year he spent there he was a noted amateur pugilist and had several encounters with professional boxers of name and fame. When he had reached the age of 21 he went to Europe to improve his practical knowledge of his trade and worked for several years in breweries of good report in Wuertemberg, Austria and England.
Returning to this country he married Miss Sybilla Yuengling and went to New York in 1853, where with Henry Clausen, a relative by marriage, he started the Clausen & Betz Eagle Brewery. When the firm was dissolved after a prosperous career some years after, Betz founded a new brewery, the firm name being Bower & Betz. After the end of the Civil War he became the owner of a brewery on the James River in Virginia. But he did not stay long in the Old Dominion. He returned to Philadelphia in 1867 and began to manufacture porter and ale in the old Gaul brewery. Twelve years later he purchased a building previously used as a sugar refinery and there established his first lager beer brewery. For the development and extension of this plant he has spent over $2,000,000. Later on he also acquired the Germania brewery, which has been managed by his grandson during the last few years.
During all his life Betz has followed the principle to invest every dollar he could spare in real estate. Consequently it is not astonishing that he owned extensive blocks of real estate, both improved and vacant, in Philadelphia and surrounding and in New York. A most valuable part of his holdings were many houses rented for saloon purposes where his beer was sold.
Yet he was no niggard. He was a rather liberal patron of charities, making public donations to churches, hospitals and other institutions of a public character, but his many other responses to the calls of charity were only known to himself and his private secretary.
In his old age he entered into a somewhat romantic marriage with a German lady called the Countess Beroldinger, whose acquaintance he made during a journey to Europe. The lady followed him to this country and became the mother of two little girls.
In wider circles Betz is known for the fact that he succeeded in obtaining private audiences with three popes, namely Pius IX, Leo XIII and Pius X. Leo XIII received him twice and each time bestowed his blessings upon him, smilingly receiving the American’s blessing himself. Although a Lutheran, Betz was decorated by His Holiness with the order of St. Gregory. He obtained a similar honor from the King of Wuertemberg, who made him a Knight of the Order of Frederick, after having exchanged a team of horses with his former subject.
-American Brewer’s Review, volume 22, page 66.
Somewhere I have an article about the Lembeck & Betz brewery that says John Betz did work at the brewery of John F. Betz in Philadelphia when he first emigrated. And since they are from the same area of Germany, it’s reasonable to think they were related by family.
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