HENRY SCHNEIDER

Sacramento County

Biographies

HENRY SCHNEIDER

HENRY SCHNEIDER.—A native son who has made an enviable success in the stock business and become a very influential man of affairs in his community is Henry Schneider, who was born in Pleasant Valley, Eldorado County, April 24, 1866. His father was also named Henry Schneider, a native of Zurich, Switzerland, who emigrated to St. Louis, Mo. He was a butcher by trade and followed that business in the metropolis of Missouri until he removed to Kansas City, where he ran one of the first meat markets in that city. In 1855 he was butcher for the United States government on the plains, spending two years on the frontier. He was in Utah at the time of the Mountain Meadow massacre and helped bury the dead. In the fall of 1857 he came to Placerville, Cal., where he engaged in butchering; then he went to Diamondville in the same business. Purchasing a farm in Pleasant Valley, he engaged in stock-raising until his death in 1914. Fraternally he was an Odd Fellow. He had married in Diamond Spring Louise Schmidt, a native of New York City. Her father, Eugene Schmidt, was born in Germany, while her mother was born in Paris. They crossed the plains to California when Louise was a child, arriving in San Francisco when it was a town of shacks. She passed away in 1911.

Henry Schneider was the oldest of their seven children and attended the local public school until he was eleven years of age, when he took a man’s place, assisting his father in the stock business at the same time he attended night school until he was thirteen years of age. He continued buying cattle for his father and also driving a meat wagon, retailing meat through the country until 1889, when he started in business for himself.

In February, 1889, at El Dorado Mr. Schneider was married to Miss Hester M. Wheeler, who was born in El Dorado, a daughter of Noah and Hannah Wheeler, natives of New York and Mineral Point, Wis., respectively, who had crossed the plains to California in an early day. He was a wheelwright by trade, but soon after locating in El Dorado engaged in the building business; and both spent the remainder of their lives there. After his marriage Mr. Schneider engaged in the butcher and stock business in El Dorado and in time became the owner of a 1,100-acre ranch there. In 1906 he removed his family to Sacramento, where his children attended school, at the same time continuing his stock business. In 1909, he purchased his present ranch on the Cosumnes River, taking his son Leland into partnership with him. He engaged in raising grain, alfalfa, sheep and cattle, running about 500 head of high-grade Hereford cattle and about 2,500 head of sheep. They have added to their holdings and now own 5,200 acres on the Cosumnes River near Slough House, besides mountain lands for summer range. In 1920 he improved his ranch with a nice new residence, on a rise overlooking the beautiful Cosumnes Valley, making a very sightly place. The union of Mr. and Mrs. Schneider resulted in the birth of four children: Leland W. Is a partner of his father and is a graduate of Heald’s Business College; Amy Irene is the wife of Thomas Burke of Plymouth; Blanche is the wife of Melvin Russell of Folsom; while the youngest child, Ione, is attending Heald’s Business College. Mr. Schneider and his son are members of Diamond Spring Lodge No. 9, I. O. O. F., and of the California Cattle Growers’ Association, and being protectionists are naturally Republicans.

Transcribed 5-26-07 Marilyn R. Pankey.

Source: Reed, G. Walter, History of Sacramento County, California With Biographical Sketches, Pages 845-846. Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, CA. 1923.