San
Joaquin County
Biographies
JOHN J. SCHEURER
A man of good business capacity,
John J. Scheurer now holds the responsible position of line foreman with the
Western States Gas & Electric Company at Stockton. A native of Kentucky, he was born in
Louisville on November 11, 1859, and was taken by his parents, Jacob and Marian
Eva (Schuck) Scheurer to
Evansville, Indiana, where he was reared.
His parents were both natives of Germany, the father born in Nassau in
1824 and the mother in Baden in 1830, and they were married in Kentucky on
October 30, 1848. Jacob Scheurer, who
was a cigar manufacturer and dealer, died at Evansville, Indiana in June, 1897,
the mother passing away there in June, 1896, the mother of ten children, four
of whom are living.
As a boy John J. Scheurer worked for
the Evansville Gas Company as a lamp trimmer; later he became interested in
baseball and became the leading player in southern Indiana, and played
throughout the southern states in the Southern League as catcher for about five
years. In 1882 he joined Sells Brothers
Circus as boss bill poster, covering 44,000 miles in on season; in 1886 he was
with the W. W. Cole Circus for one season, then went
back to Sells Brothers, but when he arrived in Stockton in the winter of 1888,
he concluded to end his circus career.
He began working for the Stockton Gas Light & Heat Company, now the
Western States Gas & Electric Company, being service construction foreman,
and is now the oldest employee of the company, having been with them since
1888.
In Stockton on March 14, 1894, he
was married to Mrs. Bertha J. (Fairfield) Barthold,
born near Fort Wayne, Indiana, a daughter of James and Elizabeth (Thurber)
Fairfield, natives respectively of Kennebunkport, Maine, and Quebec,
Canada. Grandfather Fairfield ran boats
on the Erie Canal and later became a pioneer of Fort Wayne, Indiana, Fairfield
Avenue in that city being named for him.
James Fairfield was a farmer in Allen County, Indiana, and there Mrs. Scheurer
was reared. Her first marriage united
her with C. G. Barthold, and they came to Stockton in
1888, where he worked as an electrician until his death in 1892, leaving her
with two children: C. G., who is with
the Western States Gas & Electric Company, and Bertha Jamesetta,
who died February 9, 1917. Mr. and Mrs.
Scheurer are the parents of two children, John E. and Cyrus L., who died at the
age of two years. John E., who is with
the Western Gas & Electric Company, served in Battery C, California, on the
Mexican border and afterwards served overseas in the World War. He married Miss Florence Davis and has two
sons, Ralph E. and Jack Louis.
Mr. Scheurer is a member of the
Junior Order of United American Mechanics and is past counselor of that order;
he is a member and past chancellor commander of Charter Oak Lodge, K. P., and
belongs to the Knights of Khorassan.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
1444. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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