San
Joaquin County
Biographies
FREDERICK W. SCHIMMELPFENNIG
A decidedly proficient and
influential official of Stockton is Frederick W. Schimmelpfennig, the chief
engineer of the Stockton Water Works, which are owned by the Pacific Gas &
Electric Company. He was born in
Stockton on July 11, 1863, the son of Adam and Frederica (Pforr)
Schimmelpfennig, both natives of Germany, and both now deceased.
Adam Schimmelpfennig came to the
United States in the late fifties, and located at Troy, New York, where, as a
cabinetmaker, he worked for the Pullman Car Factory for five years. In 1859 he came out to Stockton, by way of
the Isthmus, and bought a tract of land at the corner of East Weber Avenue
between Ophir and Sierra Nevada streets, extending from Main Street to Weber
Avenue, making the purchase from the late Captain Weber, in a section then out
in the country. He planted grapes and
all kinds of fruit trees, and erected a residence which has been moved and is
now located at Fair Oaks, an interesting landmark for sixty years. He followed the carpenter trade. Many years later, the property was divided
among his children. Mr. Schimmelpfennig
was twice married. By his first wife,
Frederica Pforr, he had a son, John, now deceased; a daughter, who is Mrs.
Katherine Muller, of Monterey; a son, George W.; a daughter, Mary E., who
married Robert Kelly, of Santa Rosa; a son, the subject of our interesting
sketch, and Lena, who is the wife of Harry L. Horn, an attorney of San
Francisco. This first wife having died,
Mr. Schimmelpfennig married her sister, then a widow named Mrs. Reiss, and
their union was blessed with three children.
Fredericka Louisa is the wife of C. K. Smith, of Stockton, and she has a
brother, Adam Henry of Oakland, and a sister, Sarah Elizabeth of Stockton. Adam Schimmelpfennig died on March 1, 1910,
at the age of eighty-six and Mrs. Schimmelpfennig passed away on July 19, 1913,
at the age of seventy-six.
Frederick W. Schimmelpfennig
attended the Vineyard and Jefferson schools in Stockton, and when seventeen
years of age, started to work in Fitzgerald’s Planing Mill. Later, he went to San Francisco, where he
worked in the engine room of the old Palace Hotel, in time becoming the hotel’s
engineer. For fifteen years he was in
the engineering department of the Southern Pacific Railroad in Sacramento; and
when he came to Stockton, he worked for J. M. Kroyer
for six months. He then accepted
appointment as engineer for the Buffalo Brewing Company at Sacramento and later
at Stockton; and on June 6, 1906, he entered the employ of the Pacific Gas
& Electric Company, first as assistant engineer, and then, on February 12,
1913, as chief engineer, on the retirement of George C. Turner.
At Stockton, in 1895, Mr.
Schimmelpfennig was married to Miss Gertrude Solomon, the ceremony taking place
on the 20th of July, the gifted lady having come to Stockton from
Germany, where she was born, when she was six years of age. Two children have been born to this union,
Ruth H. and Naoma.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
980. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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