... HON. JAMES M SHUMAKER, superintendent of public grounds and buildings at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, president of the Dollar Deposit Bank of Johnstown, and former sheriff of Cambria county, Pennsylvania, is a native of Fairfield, Ohio, and was born July 8, 1851, son of Simon and Mary Bower Shumaker. He comes of one of the oldest German families of Berks county, Pennsylvania, a county always strong in its German population, and to whom it is almost wholly indebted for its remarkable wealth of resources and the substantial character of its people.
... As a boy James M. Shumaker was sent to school during the winter terms, but in the warm months of the year it was necessary that he work to help support the family. He learned the trade of a woolen worker. At the age of sixteen years he started out to make his own way in life and in 1874 found employment in the woolen mills of Wood, Morrell & Co., as foreman of the spinning room, where he worked eight years. In 1882 he had saved enough of his wages to purchase and become proprietor of a store in Johnstown, at the corner of Washington and Clinton streets, where he carried on a successful business until the disastrous flood of May 31, 1889, which swept away his property, made complete wreck of all that he had gained by previous years of hard work, and even cost him the life of a devoted wife and four children, leaving him a widower, childless, and without a home. After the awful disaster Mr. Shumaker was active in the work of relief, and was secretary of the committee of reinterment of the unknown dead ; and largely through his efforts a plot was purchased in Grand View cemetery, and there the unidentified bodies of unfortunate victims were finally laid at rest. In the performance of this duty Mr. Shumaker was in part actuated with a desire to discover in some manner the remains of his wife, but without success, and to this day he is in ignorance of her burial place. He also was a member of the committee that purchased tombstones to mark the graves of those who perished and were not identified.
Since attaining his majority Mr. Shumaker has been a strong Republican, although his most active participation in politics has been within the last twenty years. At the general election in November, 1891, he was the Republican candidate for the office of sheriff of Cambria county, and was elected at the polls by the decisive majority of nearly five hundred votes although at that time the county was strongly Democratic. He has since become a well known figure in political circles in his own county and frequently is seen in the higher councils of his party in the state. He served in the session of the state legislature of Cambria county, in 1891. After the expiration of his term of office as sheriff he took a prominent part in the development of the interests and resources of the new municipality of Johnstown, and became president of the Dollar Deposit Bank, which position he still holds ; and a loyal Republican of know quality and integrity he was appointed to his present position of superintendent of public grounds and buildings at Harrisburg. He is a director of the Johnstown Trust Company, a trustee of the Johnstown Savings Bank, a trustee of the Conemaugh Valley Memorial Hospital, president of the Consumers' Ice Company and a charter member of the Grand View Cemetery Association.
On the 28 of June, 1877, James M. Shumaker married Lena Streum, who bore him five children : John S. Shumaker ; James G. Shumaker, who died in 1885 ; Edith May Shumaker ; Irene G. Shumaker and Walter S. Shumaker, all of whom, except the second, with their mother, were victims of the flood of 1889. On the 12th of November, 1891, Mr. Shumaker married Antonia Lambert, by whom he has six children - Mabel, Warren, Donald E., Esther Shumaker, Roy A. and Harold Raymond. ...
