CYRINES SCHINDLER

Sacramento County

Biographies

CYRINES SCHINDLER

C. SCHINDLER, one of the well-known long resident men of business of Sacramento, is a native of Germany, born at Baden-Baden, April 14, 1835, his parents being John and Francisca (Schuler) Schindler, the father a farmer. When he was five years of age the family emigrated to America, sailing from Havre on the French merchant ship Elizabeth, and landed at New York. They located on a farm twenty-five miles east of Buffalo, on the Lake Erie shore. When the subject of this sketch had reached the age of eleven years, he went to Buffalo, and after serving two years as waiter in a fashionable boarding-house, went to work in the sash, door and blind factory of A. C. Saugster & Husted, to learn that business and the carpenter trade. He worked for them four years, then took the contract to build a cooper shop for N. D. Clark, of Buffalo, and made money out of the job. He also mortgaged a lot for $300, and in March, 1852, he started for California with A. C. Sangster. Arriving at Panama, he found no vessel to take him to San Francisco, so went to work at the carpenter trade for “$6 a day and found.” He next went to sea on the little two-masted schooner B Allen, engaging at first as table waiter, and being promoted steward. He was 100 days on the voyage to San Francisco, and on arriving there took a steamer for Sacramento. He found Mr. Sangster, who was already in the sash, door and blind business, and went to work for him. Three months later the factory was burned down in the great fire of November, 1852. It was rebuilt on K street, between Fifth and Sixth. Two years afterward it was burned down again, and Mr. Schindler purchased what was left, and started in business himself, he having brought $2,000 with him, and having sent back the money to pay off the mortgage on his Buffalo lot in 1853. Four or five years after he commenced business, Mr. Schindler’s factory was destroyed by fire, and he rebuilt with brick. He sold that place and bought again at 708 and 710 K street. The big floods of 1861-’62 caused considerable loss to him here, and 40,000 feet of sugar-pine lumber belonging to him, together with a wagon and other property, floated away. Considerable glass which he had in stock was also damaged. Besides this he lost about $2,000 which was owing to him, on account of high water. These floods showed the people where the grade must be established, and he raised his place eight feet. He next built the house of Mr. Uhl, on M street, for $3,500, and then erected over his own buildings the Central Hall. The fire-fiend again came and burned him out, with the loss of his machinery, again without insurance. He has been engaged in contracting ever since. The sash, door and blind business was a good one in the early days. Before the Eastern manufactured goods came in he could sometimes make as high as $150 in a day. Then the Eastern good commenced to be brought here, Eastern lumber sold at $100 per 1,000 feet, and in order to compete with the articles of Eastern manufacture Mr. Schindler hunted out the sugar-pine, with which he did a good business. Some of his workmen went back on him, however, and advised people to buy at the lumber-yards, and he had to compete against the whole Eastern trade. But he made money on odd sizes and lengths, which were not handled in the yards. In May, 1890, Mr. Schindler will assume complete possession of his building, and will then embark in the furniture business. In politics Mr. Schindler is a Republican. He has one son, L. C., who is book-keeping for Gregory Bros. Mr. Schindler has been in Sacramento since the early days, and has many interesting reminiscences of the early time in this city.

Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.

Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated History of Sacramento County, California. Pages 740741. Lewis Publishing Company. 1890.