The Bergdoll Boys, page 60
“She looked solid, strong, and assured,” is how he described Elizabeth Bertha Bergdoll Hall in her 81st year.
They had to drive past the Broomall farms to get to and from Betty’s house. Nothing was left to see except Emma’s grand mansion, partially obscured from West Chester Pike by thick overgrown trees, vines, and shrubs.
In March 1976, a fire of undetermined origin gutted Emma’s abandoned mansion. Photographs taken by local firefighters showed a massive ball of orange fire erupting from atop the stone structure between the matching twin spires. They determined that the fire began in the basement of the vacant house. A stone skeleton façade was all that was left, with the massive stone front porch still intact. High above remained the triangular piece of stone from Charles’ quarry inscribed with the date 1907 A.D. The mansion was a total loss from the fire and had to be demolished.
Many years later, after protracted legal battles between Grover’s estate and Pennsylvania and the federal government over the planned construction of the interstate highway bypass around Philadelphia, the West Chester Pike (Route 3) interchange of I-476, locally known as The Blue Route for the blue-penned path of three highway options, cut through the heart of the Bergdolls’ Broomall farms.7 The highway interchange consumed Grover’s land and Erwin’s farm. Today, tens of thousands of cars and trucks pass through what was then the Bergdoll’s fields and side yards overlooking the Darby Creek valley. The front door of Erwin’s machine shop sat on what is today the offramp leading to West Chester Pike westward.
Depending upon the time of day, I-476 is either a speedway or clogged with modern automobiles, the same path traveled by Erwin and Grover in their race cars. Occasionally, an airplane will fly overhead following the highway route from the Delaware River inland through Pennsylvania, the same path Grover flew in his Wright B Flyer.
Alfred did not travel farther west to tour the remains of Harmony Hill Farm near Downingtown in Chester County, Pennsylvania, or Erwin’s western farm in Honey Brook Township. By then, the abandoned properties had become overgrown and fallen from use. Harmony Hill was later purchased by East Bradford Township and became a passive park with hiking trails leading from Skelp Level Road into the Valley Creek valley below. The trails pass within a few feet of the Bergdolls’ farmhouse and barn foundations. A few outbuildings, such as Berta’s brick smokehouse, remained for many years. The land still offers privacy and remoteness, the very reason it was chosen as the Bergdolls’ retreat.
In 1969, Berta Franck Bergdoll still lived in the Tidewater region of Virginia, but she had sold River Edge. She died on January 2, 2001, at 93, and was buried in a rural community of Virginia’s Middle Peninsula overlooking the Chesapeake Bay.
River Edge became run down again and overgrown with weeds for over 30 years, but in 2010, new owners began a complete restoration, consulting with historical preservation experts.
The infamous Wynnefield mansion was long gone by the Bergdoll children’s tour of Philadelphia in the late 1960s. The location of Grover’s capture and escape and so much drama, the Wynnefield mansion brought out so many emotional memories for Alfred; one reason he may not have wanted to visit the location in the 1960s. Again, because this infamous mansion is gone, the other mansions are often mistaken for Wynnefield. The three-acre lot was subdivided, and multiple homes were built. For many years the old iron fencing remained. Nothing of the mansion where Grover was captured in the window box or where he kept his race cars in the garage is left from when Wynnefield was surrounded by police, federal agents, and scores of gawkers. Neighboring mansions are still there, of course, and just up Wynnefield Avenue is the former Elizabeth and Albert Hall mansion, today’s Settlement Music School.
In Delaware County, west of the Philadelphia city limits, the old Eagle Hotel is long gone, replaced by commercial buildings of all shapes and sizes. Across North Eagle Road at Garfield Avenue, the 24-acre Eagle Flying Field site is the modern Manoa Shopping Center with a large grocery store, coffee shops, and various other shops for the dense neighborhood that filled in the flying field in the 1960s and 1970s.
In the early 1940s, a wrecking company demolished the Wynnefield mansion, top, in return for valuable lumber and the ornate woodwork inside. The mansion lot was sold and subdivided into five new home-building lots. The worker is standing in Grover’s 1920 window box hiding place. The Broomall mansion, bottom, burned in 1976 and was also demolished. It made way for the West Chester Pike interchange of Interstate 476. (Historical Society of Pennsylvania/Philadelphia Record, Temple University Urban Archives)
If Alfred, Erwin, and Katharina had traveled to see the Bergdoll property in Somerset, Maryland, in the late 1960s, they would have found another empty Bergdoll lot that would later be developed into a massive high-rise condominium project and community parkland. While the Emma Bergdoll trust sold the 132 acres of prime Washington-area land in 1946, the first legal roadblocks to its ultimate development were not cleared until 1969.
In the first stage of development approval for “the Bergdoll Tract,” the Town of Somerset gained 12 acres of parkland and a swimming pool. They also won a reduction in the height of the future condos and less density. But the development stalled for another 17 years.
Then, in 1987, the Town of Somerset considered de-annexing a portion of the Bergdoll Tract on which the high-rise condominiums would be built. The Washington Post reported that Somerset residents were concerned the new “apartment dwellers would not share the interests of the townspeople.” Many residents did not want the new condominium owners to outnumber and outvote the existing residents. The town’s mostly single-family homeowners also wanted to maintain their bucolic setting near the Friendship Heights subway station and “the chic boutiques of Wisconsin Avenue’s so-called Gold Coast.” In 1988, the residents of Somerset voted 90 percent in favor of de-annexation. The connection with Bergdoll’s controversial past did not influence the vote.
Legal entanglements over the Bergdoll Tract went back as far as 1938 when Emma, having difficulties managing her far-flung properties, had failed to pay the property taxes for years. She turned the Bergdoll Tract and tens of thousands of dollars in securities over to Berta, understanding that Berta would manage the tax issues and sell the securities to pay off the mortgage on a large Philadelphia property. Berta did nothing but hold the paperwork. The only reason the Bergdolls didn’t lose the valuable Somerset land for unpaid taxes is that street and utility expansion required taking some of the Bergdoll Tract by eminent domain. Instead of paying the Bergdolls cash for their tiny bits of property, Somerset used the money to satisfy the outstanding taxes.
The entire “what a mess,” as Grover often referred to his many tangles, was finally resolved with the creation of the Emma Bergdoll Trust in 1938 and a financial settlement between the trust and Berta and Grover in 1940.
Counting the decades of legal wrangling over the Somerset property between the Bergdolls and the decades of objections over the sale and development of the Bergdoll Tract, it is today, by far, the most protracted battle over residential real estate development in the Washington, D.C. region.
It took over 50 years to clear the Bergdoll Tract from legal challenges until the land was put to its most valuable residential and commercial use.
The high-rise development of condos was named Somerset House. It included three 20-story towers, with the first completed in 1988. The many units sold for $300,000 to $1.4 million in 1987’s pre-construction pricing.
Most people today don’t realize the immaculate, expertly maintained land for the condos, shops, parks, and swimming pools formerly belonged to the infamous Bergdolls of Philadelphia.
The other Bergdoll artifact missed during the family’s tour in the late 1960s sat quietly inside the Franklin Institute science museum along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia. Because Alfred went to see his father’s Wright B Flyer with his mother in 1938, it’s challenging to understand why he and Erwin and Katharina didn’t make arrangements in 1969 to view such an essential item in their father’s young life, especially since Alfred was preparing to write the family’s biography.
Since the Franklin acquired the Wright Brothers Wright B Flyer number 13 in 1933, it either hung from the ceiling or sat on the floor in the museum’s Hall of Aviation. For all those years of the exhibit, there was scant information about the airplane, especially its connection to Philadelphia and Grover Bergdoll. It was almost as if the museum curators were afraid to mention that it was owned by the notorious Bergdoll and used to set early aviation records.
In the early 1990s, when I first viewed Grover’s Wright B at the Franklin, there was so little information about the airplane’s history that it inspired me to look it up in the infant era of the Internet. So did another visitor to the museum around the same time. Writing to the Franklin in April 1993, self-described Wright Brothers enthusiast August E. (Gus) Brunsman said he and his wife, Charlotte, of Kettering, Ohio were historians of the Wright Brothers. The Brunsmans said they “had great difficulty finding any appropriate label explaining the significance and history of your important Model B.”
It remained that way for years. With wonderfully displayed exhibits in other parts of its world-renowned museum, the Franklin was remiss about the true story behind its Bergdoll Wright B Flyer for decades. I’ve always wondered why. The Appendix addresses the provenance of the Franklin’s Wright B Flyer.
For his diary-manuscript, Alfred didn’t make it to California to see what became of his uncle Charles Bergdoll-Brawn’s life, partly because of the travel expense and because the East Coast Bergdolls were estranged from the West Coast Bergdoll-Brawns. Charles and Louise are buried beside their daughter, Emma, at Mount Vernon Cemetery in Philadelphia. The cemetery has suffered financial management problems over many years and has become increasingly overgrown with weeds and brush. It starkly contrasts with the burial site of the elder Bergdolls at West Laurel Hill Cemetery.
Interestingly, Grover’s boyhood friend in crime and flying companion Charles Kraus, Jr. remained on friendly terms with the California Bergdoll-Brawns. Kraus spent many years handling their financial, legal, and insurance matters. He handled their burial and estate affairs, beginning with their daughter, Emma Christina Brawn’s accidental gunshot death in 1928. As the Brawns’ agent, Kraus arranged to pay Charles’ funeral and burial cost of $420.60 when Charles died on May 12, 1962.
When the Brawns moved to San Diego County in 1929–1930, they purchased a 44-acre tract of land in Orleavo Heights, Vista, California, subdivided from the historical Buena Vista Rancho for avocado and citrus groves. They contracted with renowned architect Edgar V. Ullrich of La Jolla to build a Spanish Colonial Revival or California Moorish-style home in the shape of an H with “round-topped doors and windows, custom brass hardware, wrought iron railings, patios, and a staircase over the front entrance.” According to a survey by the National Register of Historic Places, the 11-room and six-bathroom stucco-walled house also had elements of Mission Revival and is the most historically significant of its kind in the area.
Despite moving to California, Charles and Louise retained ownership and substantial income from their Birdsboro Stone Company in Pennsylvania. Records indicate their Vista home cost about $30,000 to construct, but when the orchards, garages, servants’ quarters, and other outbuildings and landscaping were added, the cost rose to about $100,000. The trees alone on the property were magnificent. Avocado, citrus, cypress, eucalyptus, horsetail pine, coral and olive trees, palms, monkey puzzle, and Torrey pines were scattered about the acreage.
When root rot destroyed most of their plantings, Charles and Louise immediately encountered difficulty with the avocado and citrus orchards. They sued the developer of the former Rancho and won because fertile topsoil had been scraped from the surface of their land, rendering it more susceptible to root rot, a common issue in the region. It caused Charles to shift focus, purchase a 100-acre pasture lot and raise thoroughbred horses with two of his Arabians winning national grand and reserve grand champion titles. The Brawns moved twice in San Diego County, settling in Valley Center near Escondido. Charles and Louise maintained a thoroughbred horse farm in Pauma Valley until retirement in 1953.
During the Bergdoll children’s late 1960s tours of their family’s stomping grounds around Philadelphia, their aunt Elizabeth Bertha Bergdoll Hall was living with her daughter near Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, west of Philadelphia. In a 1968 photograph Alfred and Katharina took with their Aunt Betty, she appears slight in height, no more than 5′2″, smartly dressed in an attractive blue dress with pearls, expertly coiffed hair, and wearing rimless eyeglasses. Her expression is stern and resembles Emma and Grover more than Louis, Charles, or Erwin. One can also see hints of her father’s likeness.
Elizabeth outlived her husband, Albert Hall, who died at the Masonic Homes Hospital near Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, in 1964 at 83. Elizabeth, the woman who may have been the first to drive her own car in Philadelphia and who raced around the Fairmount Park track with her husband, died on October 12, 1975, at 87. Elizabeth and Albert are buried near the elder Bergdolls’ grand mausoleum at West Laurel Hill Cemetery.
It’s clear from his writings that Alfred Bergdoll wished to publish his diary-manuscript and allow people to read his rendition of the incredible story of the Bergdoll family. It’s also clear that when a reader gets deep into his account, Alfred holds contempt, disdain, and disgust for his father’s actions and his mother’s long acceptance of them. In the final decade of Grover’s life, however, it’s clear from Alfred’s description that Alfred and his mother reconciled and worked closely together to manage Grover’s mental illness, get him the supervision, and care he needed, and manage his estate for the future benefit of the Bergdoll children.
Alfred never published his story. It was incomplete for publication submission material, missing many names, dates, and details of significant events that were not available to Alfred in pre-Internet days. He expressed frustration with publishers who either didn’t want it or demanded a more thorough and professional appearing copy of the manuscript before submission. While reading his 645 pages, many handwritten, it becomes clear that he’s trying to set the Bergdoll family record straight. After Alfred completed his writings, in 1970, he admonished a Philadelphia newspaper for misstating that a Bergdoll Motor Company car was built by “infamous Bergdoll draft dodgers.” He correctly stated that the Bergdoll car was built by Louis Bergdoll (Bergson), not Grover or Erwin Bergdoll.
Alfred’s recollections, however, were most valuable for writing this depiction of the family’s story.
Alfred donated his manuscript and many family documents and photographs to the Balch Institute of Philadelphia, which, in turn, donated its materials to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
Alfred Bergdoll never married and lived much of his adult life in Virginia and New York City. Alfred and his brother, Erwin, were collectors of underground comic book original artwork, which landed in the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum in Columbus, Ohio. It’s described as “an underground collection beyond compare.” When Alfred Bergdoll unexpectedly died of heart disease at 66 in New York in January 1994, his youngest sister, Katharina, assumed management of his estate. She has granted permission to paraphrase, cite, and quote from Alfred’s story, The Curse of the Bergdoll Gold, for this book.
Additionally, Katharina Bergdoll, Louis Erwin Bergdoll, and Kathy (Bergdoll) Brawn Tidball reviewed and assisted in proofreading this manuscript before publication.
A few final notes on the Bergdoll saga. A few times a year, tours are conducted at the West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd, Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, with one of the most popular stops in front of the grand Bergdoll mausoleum. There, the tour guides explain the Bergdoll Brewery legacy in Philadelphia. But, when Grover Bergdoll is broached, attention perks up, and guests are intrigued about America’s number one draft dodger, escape artist, and gold hunt hoaxer. When the tour ends, this inevitably leads to Internet searches for more information about the Bergdolls. Readers should be cautioned, however: some information found online about the Bergdolls has been stretched, embellished, misunderstood, and misstated for decades. For just one example, at each of the four times I’ve visited the Louis Bergdoll brownstone mansion in Philadelphia’s Fairmount neighborhood, I’ve heard others on the sidewalk declare, “That’s where Grover Bergdoll lived and where he was captured while hiding from the police.” The inaccurate detail was printed long ago in a newspaper and, like many others, has been repeated on the Internet.
Also, as a result of misinformation on the Internet, the greatly embellished story of the Bergdoll gold is even more burnished as it travels from newspapers to blogs and social media. As late as 2015, a Pennsylvania newspaper suggested the Bergdoll gold may have been hidden in the Dillingersville train tunnel near Vera Cruz, Pennsylvania. The tunnel carries freight trains under the Pennsylvania Turnpike near Allentown. Another article in The New York Times suggested that Bergdoll’s gold was hidden in rock in the stone quarry Charles Bergdoll owned near Birdsboro, Pennsylvania. None of this was ever true, but the stories are repeated continuously.
The evidence presented in this story should be understood. No Bergdoll gold is hidden anywhere in the Maryland mountains or Pennsylvania, or anywhere. It’s a fact that Grover and Emma withdrew gold coins from the United States Treasury and then hid them behind a plaster wall in Grover’s bedroom closet at the Wynnefield mansion. However, the gold was removed by Grover and deposited in a Philadelphia bank by Berta.
Just as you’ve read here about the family, the Bergdoll gold is simply one hell of a story.
