SCHAEFFER
W.B. SCHAEFFER
Portrait and Biographical Records ~ Pages 600 and 601
Kindly submitted by: Pauline Anthony
W. B. SCHAFFER, General Agent for the New Jersey Central
Railroad at Bethlehem, PA., was born at Seigfried's Bridge,
Northampton County, August 5, 1865. His father was born in Moore
Township, Northampton County, and was a merchant and traveling
salesman in the Lehigh Valley and throughout the states of
Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York. His home is now at Whitehall,
Lehigh County. He is an active Republican, and has served as
Assessor and Justice of the Peace. He is seventy-two years old
and is in good health.
The grandfather, Theobald SCHAEFFER, was born in Moore Township,
Northampton County, in 1798 and died in 1890, when over
ninety-two years of age. In his youth he learned the tanning
trade with Peter Steckel. He afterward built a tannery, and
followed tanning and farming for upwards of sixty years. He was
one of the Commissioners who built the road over the Blue
Mountains at Burrow's Springs, called Smith Gap, at or near what
is now Point Philips. He secured his appointment from the state
Government, which furnished the money for the undertaking. The
other commissioners were George Schlabach, from Northampton
County, and John Smith, from Carbon County. His father was John
SCHAEFFER, commonly called Captain SCHAEFFER, from his command
of a militia company, somewhere about the year 1814. He was a
Justice of the Peace for many years. The mother of our subject,
Hettie (Steckel) SCHAEFFER, was born near Egypt, Lehigh County
and is still living, at the age of sixty-eight.
There were nine children in the parental family, eight of whom
attained maturity, and are still living. The four sons are Rev.
Oliver SCHAEFFER, who is the present pastor of the Reformed
Church in Schuylkill County; Dr. Oscar SCHAEFFER, a practicing
physician at Freemansburg; Robert F., the assistant agent in the
employ of the New Jersey Central Railroad; and William B. The
latter began teaching school when he was only fifteen years old,
and taught for one year in Upper Nazareth Township near Bath. He
continued teaching in Northampton and Lehigh Counties until
1884, when he engaged with the Lehigh Valley Railroad as an
extra operator, running between Bethlehem and Wilkes Barre.
In 1885, W. B. SCHAEFFER entered the employ of the New Jersey
Central as an operator, being stationed at Seigfried's Bridge;
later he was transferred to the train dispatcher's office at
Ashley, PA, and in 1886 came to Bethlehem as an assistant agent.
He continued as such until the fall of 1888, when he was
promoted to the position of General Agent, and also agent for
the United States Express Company, his brother securing his late
position. In May 1887, he was appointed Justice of the Peace,
and elected for five years in February 1888, but owing to the
press of other duties he was obliged to resign in February 1889.
His appointment, it is supposed, was the first ever tendered to
so young a man. Both parties nominated him for School Director
in West Bethlehem, and he was elected to that position for two
consecutive terms and is at the present time Secretary of the
School Board. Mr. SCHAEFFER is a member of the Republican county
standing committee and was a delegate to the state convention in
1893.
Our subject was married in Newark, N. J., in June 1886, to Miss
Nellie Fairchild, and they have three children, Raymond, Harold
and Gerald.