Ferdinand Schumacher

AKRON & SUMMIT COUNTY

Karl H. Grismer

Summit County Historical Society, Akron, Ohio c. 1950 p 674

     Ferdinand Schumacher, known for years as the Cereal King of America, was born March 30, 1822, at Celle, Hanover, Germany, the son of F. C. and Louise Schumacher. He attended school until he was 15, then clerked in a grocery and later worked in a sugar refinery.

     In 1850, Mr. Schumacher came to the United States with his brother, Otto, bought 46 acres of land in Euclid, near Cleveland, and farmed a year and a half. Then leaving the farm in charge of his brother, he came to Akron and started a fancy goods, toy and notion store, .soon afterward going into the grocery business.    

     In 1856 he leased water power rights on the Cascade Mill Race and started an oatmeal manu­facturing plant on N. Howard Street, making the meal as he had seen it made in Germany. Up to that time, all the oatmeal used in this country had been imported. Mr. Schumacher was able to produce it at a lower price and soon developed a large business. Later he made pearl barley and other cereal products, constantly increasing the number of his mills, as related in the general text.

Following the destruction by fire of his eight-story Jumbo Mill on March 6, 1886, causing him a reported loss of $600,000, he merged his busi­ness with that of the Akron Milling Company under the name of the F. Schumacher Milling Company. This concern was consolidated with the American Cereal Company in 1891, of which Mr. Schumacher was president until 1899. Later the American Cereal was merged with the Quaker Oats Company.

     An ardent prohibitionist, Mr. Schumacher built the Windsor Hotel on the northeast corner of Mill and Broadway in 1883 as a temperance hotel. He later spent many thousands of dollars in backing the temperance town of Harriman, Tenn. He was a generous contributor to all church organizations, the Universalists being particularly indebted to him for their church lot and building.

     During the 1890s Mr. Schumacher went heav­ily into debt to maintain controlling interest in the American Cereal Company and also to finance a water power and paper mill project in Marseilles, Ind., in which he was interested. As a result, he was compelled to sign over all his assets to an executor in 1896. However, it was reported when he died on April 15, 1908, that he had paid all his debts in full.

     Mr. Schumacher was married in Cleveland, October 7, 1851, to his cousin, Hermine Schumacher, of Bevern, Brunswick, Germany, who died June 1, 1893. They had seven children. On August 1, 1899, he married again, to Mary Zep­perlin, of Cincinnati. He was survived by two sons: F. Adolph, who was then head of the Schumacher Cereal Mills, of Iowa City, Ia., and Louis, who was on a world trip with his wife at the time of his father's death.