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Amandus Burger and Ira Berger
What's on this page:
- Amandus K. Burger
- Ira Berger
This page is about two Burger/Berger contractor/builders in Freeland who were unrelated. Because their names were reported in different sources variously as Burger and Berger, here is some information on both of them.
Amandus K. Burger
Something special: receipts for building a house in Freeland in 1887!
These photos of receipts come from Karen Kreitzberger Polett, related to the Shanno family, who wrote: The house at 925 Washington Street was built for Leopold Shanno by A. K. Burger in 1887. I have the receipts. I wondered why Berger used a White Haven lumber yard. Maybe that early on, Berger only built homes? Adam Sachs lived next door on the north side of 925 Washington, and Gertrude Walp’s home was on the other side, at the corner of Washington and Chestnut Streets. That 925 Washington Street house got remodeled and the front porch was closed in. It is still there.
The first lumber
yard I found in the directories was listed in the
1884-86 directory as Kreyscher Bros.
& Yoch, planing mill, N Centre at borough line. I'm not sure
exactly where it was. Louis Kreyscher wrote to the Keck lumber yard
in 1883 when he was just starting his planing mill, to
ask about buying some stock to have on hand while he began his own
planing mill
in Freeland. Since Keck was
already well-established in White Haven when A. K. Burger built this
house, maybe Burger just kept doing
business with him even though there was a planing mill closer to the
work site. The Freeland Lumber Co. was established by 1895, and several
others were
established soon after in the early 1900s. Although Amandus K. was building in Freeland in the late 1880s, he’s not listed in either the Freeland residential or business listings in the 1880s directories – the earliest I see him in my files is in the 1895 Freeland directory individual listings under Burger:
Burger, Amandus K., carpenter, h 40 Walnut
Burger, Charles, apprentice, h 40 Walnut
Burger, Ira, carpenter, h Centre
Burger, John J., carpenter, h 44 Walnut
Burger, Joseph W., apprentice, h 40 Walnut
Burger, Lizzie J., h 40 Walnut
Burger, Reuben B., carpenter, h Centre
Burger, William H., carpenter, h 42 Walnut
[The Findagrave website shows that Amandus K. was born in 1835 and died in 1899 in Indiana, where he and his wife Eliza Ann Barthold Burger and their children had moved to from Freeland not long before. His father was Thomas Burger of Freeland.]
A number of his construction contracts were reported in the Freeland Tribune. In 1893 the Freeland Tribune reported that A. K. Burger contracted to build an addition to the Polish Catholic Church in Hazleton as well as a parsonage; he also contracted to build a home on Adams Street for G. R. Keller of Hazle Brook, and another at the NW corner of Washington and Luzerne for James Clare of Wilkes-Barre. In November he contracted with William Johnson to build a house on Walnut street near the end of the borough line.
In 1894 it was reported that he contracted with Station Agent James McHugh to build a double 30x30’ block on Washington Street, near Carbon. He contracted to build a house for Martin Kirchnak of Eckley on the Birkbeck estate on the east side of Washington street near the borough line, and also contracted to build a large single home on Adams street for John Rebarchak of Highland.
Charlie Stumpf’s book also has this: “During the month of May 1894, building contractor A. K. Burger moved the Eckley Presbyterian Church to a new location in Freeland.” This move was also reported in the newspaper.
In
1894 A. K. Burger got the contract to build an addition onto St.
Mary's Church, as shown at left. You can see what the original 1887 church looked like on
the St. Mary's page,
and the middle church on the postcard at right shows the change that
was made to that building. By 1907 a completely new church was built at
the north end of that block of Fern street -- also shown on this
postcard -- and still serves the parish today. For a brief period both
churches remained in place.In fall of 1896 Burger began work on a new church for the Holiness Christian Association at Weatherly. This leads me to wonder whether it might possibly have been Amandus K. Burger rather than "Emanuel Burger" who built the Christian Holiness Church in Freeland, as Charlie Stumpf had written in his notes. And maybe it was the Holiness Christian Church? [I will look into this. -- CT]
Ira Berger
In
his A
History of Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania
(1909-1930),
by Oscar Jewell Harvey, and in Ira's obituary in 1942 (thank you, Ed
Merrick), we learn that Ira Berger was born in 1870 in Effort, Pa.
(near Stroudsburg) to parents Reuben and Mary (Kresge) Berger. Ira came
to Freeland in 1886 at age 16 and became a carpenter's apprentice,
working his way up to foreman. He began his own lumber and contracting
/ construction business in 1905 or 1906, and gradually built it into
one of the largest businesses of the North Side (1942 obituary). The
undated postcard at left is an early view of Berger's; the street was
still unpaved. The map details at right show Berger's future site
marked on the 1905
Sanborn Fire Insurance map, and an unlabeled view in 1923.In the 1895 Freeland directory individual listings under Burger, Ira and Reuben were living on Centre street, while the other Burgers were living on Walnut street at three contiguous addresses. I don't know when he changed his surname from Burger to Berger -- early newspaper accounts were not consistent. Here are the 1895 Burgers listed.
Burger, Amandus K., carpenter, h 40 Walnut
Burger, Charles, apprentice, h 40 Walnut
Burger, Ira, carpenter, h Centre
Burger, John J., carpenter, h 44 Walnut
Burger, Joseph W., apprentice, h 40 Walnut
Burger, Lizzie J., h 40 Walnut
Burger, Reuben B., carpenter, h Centre
Burger, William H., carpenter, h 42 Walnut
Frequent website contributor Ed Merrick did some searching
among
newspapers online to find more information on Ira Berger and among
other things found this: in 1893 the Freeland
Tribune
reported that “the house now being built by contractor
Lentz … on Washington Street was broken into and a large box of
carpenters tools belonging to Ira Burger was stolen.” Many of the tools
were recovered and returned to Burger. This suggests to me that Lewis
H. Lentz may have been the contractor who employed Burger as an
apprentice. If that's the case, Ira Berger might have worked on the
Zion Welsh Baptist Church on Fern Street in 1892.In 1919 Ira Berger was awarded a contract to build a 2-story addition to the Mayberry building at 725 Centre street (later the American Legion building), which "on the rear of the dwelling and the lower floor will permit considerable more space for business purposes."
Ed Merrick noted: The Burgers and Bergers did not have a very high profile in the newspapers, and they did not advertise in the Hazleton papers. Ira Berger & Son is listed in product ads along with other advertisers, such as for shingles and paint, but only in the Wilkes-Barre newspapers. In the same papers are many property transfers involving Ira Berger. Later in the 20th century more Berger ads did show up in the papers.
In 1950 there was big news for Freeland when the Freeland Industrial Development Corporation signed an agreement with the I. J. Moritt Corp. of New York to build and run a sewing machine factory. Prominent in the photo for the groundbreaking was Emerson Berger, of the Ira Berger & Sons construction firm, which had the contract to build the factory out on east South Street. [More about this factory on a future page.]
Berger's was a major
construction force in Freeland and the area for a century. The photo at
left shows Berger's at its longtime location on Birkbeck at Walnut. Ira
Berger and Sons
repurposed the old Jeddo school in 1986, clipping courtesy
of the Hazleton Historical Society.