Lembeck & Betz Eagle Brewery: Lembeck & Betz Eagle Brewery

Lembeck and Betz Eagle Brewing Company
Ninth, Tenth, Henderson, and Manila (now Grove) Streets

Historic District
Demolished c. 1997; Now Site of Explore Middle School, Hudson County Schools of Technology

Business partners Henry Lembeck and John F. Betz founded one of the best-known, best-equipped, and financially successful breweries on the East Coast. By 1889, it manufactured 50.000 barrels of ale and port and 250,000 barrels of beer annually in a state-of-the-art facility that was valued at a million dollars valued at three million dollars in total assets.

Henry Lembeck was born at Osterwick, Mu[e]nster, Germany, on April 8, 1826. He adopted his father's trade of cabinet as a thirteen-year-old apprentice. He served four years as a journeyman and expected to complete his training in Paris when he was drafted into the German army in 1846, a year before the revolution. A genealogical investigation by Lembeck's descendants has documented that while serving in the military, Lembeck, dressed in civilian attire, frequently attended and participated in rallies of the insurgents.  After a March 1849 furlough, Lembeck did not return to his regiment and reportedly immigrated to the US.  An investigation in 1850 concluded that he was "declared a deserter." 

After working as a carpenter for the Herring Safe Company in New York City, Lembeck became the clerk to a grocer. Three years later, he bought his own business that developed from a grocery store to a market-gardening firm. While his business flourished, Lembeck also became a sales agent for the brewery of John F. Betz of New York. In 1869, Lembeck moved to Jersey City and, with Betz, began a brewery to manufacture ale and porter on Ninth Street. The Betz family had already established a reputation as brewers in the United States and Germany.

With Lembeck's business savvy and Betz's background in ale and port production, the partnership was economically successful, and the partners expanded the Jersey City brewery. Lembeck astutely noted the diminishing taste for ale in the United States. In 1889, he added the production of the more popular lager. Lembeck became president of the company and Betz vice president. In May 1890, the brewery was incorporated into a cooperative stock company.

A biography of Lembeck states, "[he] had the complete management of the business, assumed full responsibility of its direction, and consequently must receive the credit for its success and growth" ("Biography of Henry B. Lembeck," 2). The brewery's physical plant, begun on Ninth Street, was enlarged to accommodate the required refrigeration and storage of beer; it eventually occupied seventeen city lots. A malt house, H.F. Lembeck & Company at Watkins, NY, at the head of Seneca Lake, complemented the brewing firm.

Besides the brewery's success, Lembeck invested in Jersey City, his permanent residence. He was one of the founders of the Greenville Banking and Trust Company, became vice president of the Third National Bank of Jersey City, and served as a director of the Hudson Real Estate Company, among other corporations. In 1898, Lembeck built the Hudson Building at 13-15 Ocean Avenue. The stone Romanesque Revival structure at the corner of Lembeck and Ocean Avenues consecutively housed the Hudson Real Estate Company and the Greenville Bank and Trust Company with which he was associated. After a renovation in 1970, the Hudson Building became a 22-unit apartment.

Lembeck owned large tracks of land in Greenville and helped with development. He donated property for the extension of Columbia Park (today's Bartholdi Avenue). His early carpentry training led Lembeck to build a reported 32-to-43 houses in Jersey City before 1895 and to participate in their construction as both architect and supervising contractor. Lembeck discontinued home building over a dispute with the city regarding the quality of water supplied to the Greenville area and complained of the resulting loss of tenants.

Lembeck designed his home at 46 Columbia Place (today's Lembeck Avenue) and Old Bergen Road. The modest-looking red-brick structure has a decorative gray cornice with dentil molding and corner brackets. The center section of the house features a recessed gray wood-and-glass door reached from the concrete riser. Decorative brackets over a double window with a semicircular transom support the open pediment. Pyramids over the roofline appear atop the adjoining sections of the building. The Lembeck home, donated by his widow to St. Anne's Home for the Aged at 198 Old Bergen Road, serves as St. Anne's administrative building. In 1987, St. Ann's became part of the York Street Project, run by Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace.

Lembeck died at his residence on July 25, 1904. He was president of Lembeck and Betz at the time of his death. He is buried in the family plot in the Bayview-New York Bay Cemetery.

"Announcement." The Royal District Government, Department of Interior Muenster. 6 February 1850 and 25 February 1850.
Community Archive Rosendahl, C354.
"Biography of Henry B. Lembeck." (Copied from Memorial History of New York and The Hudson River Valley, Volume V 1896), 4pp.
"Death List of a Day, Henry Lembeck." New York Times. 26 July 1904.
"Great Loss to Jersey City." New York Times. 15 September 1895.
Holz, Martin. September 2003. Mr. Holz provided information about the Lembeck family in Osterwick.
Muirhead, Edward G. ed. Jersey City of To-Day, Its History, People, Trades, Commerce, Institutions and Industries, New Jersey America. Jersey City, NJ: Walter G. Muirhead, 1910.