The downfall of Syracuse brew master Herman Bartels in 1905

Herman Bartels Sr. went to bed on May 8, 1905 at his palatial Italianate home at 915 West Genesee Street, a contented and extremely successful man.

Having emigrated from Prussia in 1872, Bartels spent time in Ohio and Indiana before settling in Syracuse in 1888, with his wife and four children. He quickly found employment as the brew master for the Haberle Brewing Company, one of the city’s preeminent breweries, located on the corner of McBride and Butternut Streets.

Bartels proved himself to be a skillful brewer, but he had much loftier ambitions.

This was the golden age of regional breweries and Syracuse had fifteen.

In September of 1893, he acquired Germania Brewing Company, located on West Street, right on the Erie Canal. Bartels business acumen matched his talent for brewing. Bartels Brewing Company became one of the most successful breweries in Syracuse and he continued to branch out.

As his brewing business expanded, Bartels began buying up more brewery related businesses.

One such concern was the Lake Shore Malting Company, in Auburn, which Bartels acquired in 1890. This would prove to be his undoing, but he had no way of knowing this as he laid his head down on that May evening. Having realized the American dream, Herman Bartels was in for a very rude awakening.

Shortly before 3 a.m., Mr. and Mrs. Bartels were roused from their sleep by Norman E. Parker of the Auburn Police department. Parker told Bartels he was to be arraigned in Auburn on charges of attempted arson related to the Lake Shore Malthouse.

Bartels must have thought he was having a nightmare.

After his arraignment at the Cayuga County Courthouse, Judge, Adolphus Searing (no relation) released him on $15,000 bail and he returned to Syracuse, where the news of his arrest spread quickly.

The Herald and the Post Standard devoted several pages to the story, which included the affidavit of John Dippold. It was Dippold’s confession that led to the arrest of Bartels, a man named Karl Potratz, and the wife of Martin Whittig, both of Solvay.

According to Dippold, he and Martin Whittig were approached by Bartels in June 1904 to “fire” the malt house in Auburn, which had been dormant since 1902.

However, Bartels had insured the property for a whopping $72,000! Motive.

Over the course of the summer, Dippold, Whittig and a third conspirator, William O’Hara, went to work building a five-foot fence all around the Auburn property. It was alleged that Bartels became intimately involved at this stage, supplying several large barrels from his storehouses on West Street to another warehouse in Syracuse’s First Ward. Inside the fenced-in property, the men spent the first two weeks of September prepping the building.

On the morning of September 13, 1904, the plot was discovered by another Bartels employee, John Lawler, who randomly stopped by to see his brother-in-law.

He immediately called Bartels to inform him of the scene he had stumbled upon and was told to “go to Syracuse to talk it over.”

Perplexed, Lawler hung up and dialed the Auburn police. Incredibly, Dippold evaded capture for months. police. Whittig was never captured and his wife told anyone that would listen after her arrest that she had no idea where he was. As far-fetched as this entire saga seemed up to this point, the real craziness was just getting started.

In a statement to the press, Bartels offered a strident, categorical denial. “I’ve never experienced a greater surprise in my life,” he said.

Dippold’s allegations were “without the slightest foundation…a lie from start to finish.” He pledged to “seek a speedy examination,” and left no doubt that he would be cleared of all charges by both the court and “in the minds of my fellow citizens.”

Bartels was right to be concerned about the public reaction.

As a businessman of his stature in a close-knit community like Syracuse, his reputation was the foundation of his success and his credit line. His arrest was a major blow, and he felt the economic fallout almost immediately. In August, he transferred most of his stock in Bartels Brewing Co. to his sons-in-law, Dr. Abram Hoffman, and John Conway. With his once charmed life collapsing all around him, Herman Bartels made an interesting choice. He decided to run.

About a month later, November 10, Bartels was arrested for a second time as he exited the New Osborne Hotel in Rochester. Somehow, Auburn’s Under Sheriff Walker tracked him to the Flour City, where he was living under an assumed name. Bartels was transported to Auburn, where he was met by his attorney, A.W. Cowie, a highly respected corporate litigator, and the son of Syracuse’s former mayor.

Having proved himself a flight risk, Judge Searing agreed to release Bartels only after his sister and his daughter put up their own properties, valued at over $50,000, as surety.

The trial finally began on April 9, 1906. Every Syracuse newspaper and a host of others across the northeast offered daily coverage, recounting every twist and turn. Even jury selection was covered in minute detail.

Herman Bartels faced his accuser for the first time on April 13. The Syracuse Herald reported that a “dull silence” filled Judge Searing’s courtroom, as the spectators settled in their seats for the explosive testimony of the star witness. The details he offered were damning.

The most damaging testimony involved the exact way Dippold and Whittig prepared the building to burn and Bartels’ complicity and assistance in the cover-up. At one point, according to the testimony, Bartels had to call and smooth things over with the Syracuse Police after his First Ward neighbors called in a complaint about strange activity in the middle of the night at his warehouse on Free Street.

Over the course of the next several days, D.A. Burritt continued the relentless prosecution. Karl Potratz, the Solvay oil dealer arrested with Bartels and Dippold, testified that he delivered the oil to the building at Third North and Free Streets in Syracuse and saw several “sleighs” with the name “Bartels” pained on the sides. Ed Shannahan put the nail in Bartel’s coffin when he confirmed under oath that he had acted as a courier for his client and Dippold, while Dippold was on the lam. Cross-examination of the witnesses provided little relief for Bartels, as he sat slouched in his seat, nervously fidgeting, or chewing note cards.

The last gasp for the defense came on April 25, when Bartels finally took the stand. In what the Herald described as a “clear, calm and concise manner” the accused denied any connections whatsoever with the arson plot. The mustachioed defendant spent a considerable amount of time telling the jury his impressive life story.

After a disastrous day of cross-examination in which Bartels admitted to paying money to Mrs. Dippold and Mr. Shannahan, contradicted his own affidavit as to his whereabouts on the day of the crime, and demonstrated convenient bouts of amnesia, his fate seemed dire.

On April 28, Judge Searing turned the case over to the jury. They found Bartels guilty of attempted arson in the third degree. The verdict was front page news as far away as Cincinnati and even in the New York Times. Yet, Syracuse’s “Millionaire Brewer” was about to make even bigger headlines.

Over the strident disagreement of D.A. Burritt, Judge Searing delayed sentencing until May 2 and released Bartels, giving him the weekend to get his affairs in order. Burritt was exasperated. Facing a maximum sentence of seven and a half years in prison, Bartels was the very definition of a flight risk. Thus, it was not surprising when he failed to appear on May 2.

The headline in the Syracuse Herald was mirrored across the region: BARTELS A FUGITIVE: HIS BAIL FOREFEITED.

Under the headline was the tantalizing speculation, “It is believed the brewer is in Canada.” This was certainly the scuttlebutt in the streets, parlors, and saloons of Syracuse.

On May 2, 1907, almost a year to the day of his escape, Herman Bartels was arrested by the Ontario Police in the lobby of the luxurious Clifton Hotel in Niagara Falls, Canada, where he had been living comfortably as “Mr. Warner from Toronto.”

The fugitive brewer’s escape to Canada made sense for several reasons.

Chief amongst them was the fact that there was no extradition to the United States for the crime of attempted arson.

Unfortunately for Mr. Bartels, perjury carried no such restriction. Embarrassed by being made fools of, District Attorney Burritt and Judge Searing easily brought a charge of perjury, as he lied several times during his disastrous testimony.

Once a Cayuga County grand jury returned the perjury charge in April, Canadian authorities started looking for Bartels in earnest.

After a year on the lam, Bartels was under the impression that he had gotten away.

At the extradition hearing after his arrest, it was reported in several papers that he approached D.A. Burritt, took his hand, and said, “I did not think you would do this to me. It is about time you let up on me.” No such thing was to take place. The extradition proceedings were scheduled to begin in Toronto on July 4. Bartels gave a new meaning to Independence Day that afternoon.

The front page of the New York Times reported the unbelievable news; BARTELS ESCAPES SHERIFF. A third escape. Apparently, as Bartels and the sheriff walked through Toronto’s Osgoode Hall, the Canadian lawman stopped off to use the lavatory leaving Bartels alone. He simply walked out of the building.

The brazen escape was again front-page news across the country, from Washington D.C. to Los Angeles. Authorities on both sides of the border were astonished and ashamed of this embarrassing, almost comical turn of events.

Against all odds, Bartels managed to elude capture for almost two weeks. He was found with a total of $1,518, including a bank draft sewn into his vest. In his jail cell, Bartels requested a pen to write and sign his will. Fearing he may be suicidal, authorities denied the request and kept close watch on the despondent man.

After serving nearly three months in a Toronto jail, Bartels was released and extradited to Auburn.

The final resolution of this three-year ordeal did not come until March 2, 1908. In the end, Bartels was sentenced to no less than 14 months and no more than 19 months in the notorious Auburn State Penitentiary.

At sentencing, Bartels broke down, tears streaming down his haggard face.

Between fits of hysterics, he declared his innocence, sobbing that he was born in Germany, came here with nothing, and that he “got rid of that fellow [Dippold] thirty days before that affair.” It was a tragic and pathetic end to a remarkable American story.

Herman Bartels never recovered from his fall from grace.

He was released from Auburn on May 11, 1909. While in prison, Bartels learned the trade of broom-making.

Ever the industrious immigrant, Bartels founded the Empire Broom and Brush Company in a building next to his former warehouse. Like the fire that ruined his life, that business never actually started.

Herman Bartels died in Saratoga Springs on August 25, 1910, a little more than a year after his release from prison.

His nightmare was finally over.