CHARLES SCHMITT

Sacramento County

Biographies

CHARLES SCHMITT

CHARLES SCHMITT.--It is an old saying that a printer's is a roving trade, but such records as that of this pioneer newspaper man of Sacramento will go far to contradict this testimony. For he has been a publisher in that city for fifty-two years, and that is a record for any line of business. A native of Rhenish Bavaria, Charles Schmitt was born October 9, 1836, the son of Nicholaus Schmitt, prominent in that famed city, where he was a member of the German parliament in 1848. Both father and son came to the New World in December, 1849, the father as a refugee, having taken part in the Revolution of 1848, and located in Philadelphia, Pa., and there the lad learned the trade of printer under parental supervision.

The West beckoned the young man with tales of fortunes made over night in the gold fields, and in 1856 he came to California via Panama, coming up the Pacific from the Isthmus in the steamer "John L. Stephens." After arriving in San Francisco, the first two years were spent in that city at his trade of printer, and then, in 1858, the young Argonaut tried his luck in the mines in Tuolumne County, and at San Gabriel, Los Angeles County, and then went to Colorado, Arizona and Old Mexico.

Returning to San Francisco in November, 1860, Mr. Schmitt, in partnership with H. A. Lafontaine, established the "Abend Post," an evening daily, starting same in December of that year. In 1864 he sold out his interest in the paper, but remained as foreman until 1868, when he came to Sacramento and here established the "Sacramento Journal," a semi-weekly, printed in the German language, and continued until 1883, when the partnership with his associates was dissolved, and Mr. Schmitt started his own publication, the “North Carolina Herald and Sacramento Journal,” and this publication he continued until August, 1920, when the paper was suspended due to the high cost of materials, the reason for suspension of many other newspapers throughout the country. Not satisfied with this length of time at his “trade,” he is still in the newspaper game, however, at present acting as Sacramento agent and correspondent for the “California Journal” of San Francisco. He built and owns a comfortable home at No. 3740 Fourth Avenue, Oak Park.

Mr. Schmitt has been twice married, the first union occurring in San Francisco and uniting him with Eliza Denger of New York, now deceased; the second marriage united him with Mrs. Johanna Uhl, a native of Germany, and from these marriages twelve children were born to him, eight of them now living: Mrs. Kate Fish, of Sacramento; P.N. Schmitt, of San Francisco; Mrs. Louisa M. Briggs, of Sacramento; Charles J., of San Francisco; Henry of Roseville; Mrs. Elizabeth Stewart, of Sacramento; Mrs. Caroline Peachy, of Sacramento; and Edward Garfield, a rancher at Galt, Cal.

Interspersed with business and civic duties, Mr. Schmitt has found time to enter into the social and fraternal life of his city, and in the latter he has been prominent during his long residence. He joined the San Francisco Turnverein in 1860, and in 1877 joined the Sacramento lodge of that order, making him now the oldest living member of the lodge; he is a member of Schiller Lodge, No. 105, I. O. O. F., of Sacramento, and of Sacramento Stamm No. 124, Independent Order of Red Men, and is the only living charter member of this Stamm or Tribe, having joined in 1868; and is also a charter member of the Sacramento lodge of Hermann Sons, No. 11. A dependable man, one who could always be counted upon to do his share to promote any worthy cause, Mr. Schmitt is well known throughout this part of the state as one of its pioneer newspaper men, one of the vanguard in that line, and a man of wide knowledge gained in years of gathering news for the public.

Transcribed by Suzanne Wood.

Source: Reed, G. Walter, History of Sacramento County, California With Biographical Sketches, Page 529. Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, CA. 1923.