My Genealogy Hound

WILLIAM HARPER SHOEMAKER, deceased, who was born in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, June 29, 1859, a son of Hon. Joseph A. and Esther (Harper) Shoemaker, was a representative of a class of men whose value to a community is not marked merely by the success that attends their efforts in business undertakings, but also by their character in public and private life. He was the descendant of two of the most prominent and most highly respected families of Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, sketches of whom with particulars as to their ancestry appear in another part of this work.

William H. Shoemaker was educated in the Friends’ School in Abington, and afterward attended the Friends’ Central High School located at Fifteenth and Race streets, Philadelphia. He then took a course in Pierce’s Business College, graduating in 1880, after which he engaged in the butchering business with his father. At the expiration of two years he went to Colorado, remaining in the west a year. Upon his return to Jenkintown he again engaged in the meat business and continued the same for six years. In 1889 he purchased the ice business of James Satterthwaite at Ogontz, conducting it for a few years along the same lines as his predecessor, but, as Mr. Shoemaker was of a very progressive and enterprising disposition, he put in a machine for the manufacturing of ice, and in order to give the people of this vicinity a luxury drove artesian wells three hundred feet into rock to get the purest water that nature can produce. He was the first manufacturer of ice in this territory of Montgomery county, for which innovation he deserved and received great credit and praise. In addition to this extensive enterprise, he was also engaged in quarrying stone and selling coal, and to these lines of work he devoted his personal attention up to the time of his decease. In 1893 he was elected a member of the town council, and during his several years incumbency of this office discharged his duties and obligations faithfully and efficiently.

Mr. Shoemaker was a model citizen, and a successful business man in every sense of the word. In public and private life he was ever faithful to the duties that devolved upon him, meeting promptly and fully every obligation that he incurred. His name was synonymous with honorable dealing in all business transactions in which he was concerned. His short but active life demonstrated the possibilities that are open to young men, whose purpose is high and resolute, to become leaders in the affairs of business. It may be said of him that his death, which occurred March 16, 1902, was a shock to the whole community, of which he was an honored and useful member, all classes recognizing his sterling worth. It is another instance in which death cut short prematurely an exceedingly promising career.

Mr. Shoemaker married, in Philadelphia, April 19, 1899, Katherine Saam, who was born in that city, July 6, 1867, daughter of Conrad and Amalia (Immel) Saam. They are the parents of one child- Amalia Immel Shoemaker - born June 12, 1900. Conrad Saam was born in Marburg, Germany, in 1831, and died November 3, 1898. His wife, who survives him, was also a native of Marburg, Germany.