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Santa Claus Lived in Columbus
How a Columbus man with a gold mine–and a heart of gold–became the real-life Santa Claus of a small Ontario town
By John M. Clark / Story Design by Bryce Patterson
Ask any young kid in Columbus where Santa Claus is from, and you’re likely to hear, “the North Pole, of course!” (or something like that). Pose that same question to the children of a particular mining town in Ontario, and they’ll tell you the real Santa – a jolly, white-haired man who has provided gifts to them for more than a century – lived in Columbus, Ohio. And you would have a hard time arguing with them.
Except his name was really Frederick W. Schumacher. And his life couldn’t have been much more fascinating – even if he had lived with elves at the North Pole and driven a flying sleigh pulled by reindeer.
In 1872, the nine-year-old Danish-born Schumacher and his family immigrated to Waco, Texas. He attended Baylor University and later graduated with top honors from the St. Louis College of Pharmacy. It was in the role of pharmacist that he became acquainted with Dr. Samuel B. Hartman, of Columbus, who hired him to move to Ohio and run the advertising arm of his multi-million-dollar business, making and selling the famous Peruna patent medicine. Peruna was hardly the “cure-all” Hartman claimed it to be, but rather a “snake oil,” containing up to 30% alcohol.
Schumacher was responsible for the wildly popular, testimonial-style advertisements for Peruna that ran in newspapers across the country. He made millions for Hartman and himself, eventually rising to the level of vice president. He also married Hartman’s daughter, Maribel, and bought one of Columbus’ largest and most-fashionable homes, the former 12-thousand-square-foot Frisbie Mansion, on East Broad Street, now the site of the Frisbie apartment building. The couple divorced in 1917, following 22 years of marriage.
But Schumacher had other interests besides advertising. One was collecting fine art. In fact, his later donations of paintings helped the Columbus Museum of Art gain a nationwide reputation. And that wasn’t all. The kindly, soft-spoken Schumacher also began investing in silver mines in Ontario. One of his purchases, though, turned out to be a gold mine – quite literally.
This lucky Columbus businessman followed up his 1909 gold strike by buying two more mines in the area; and soon, a small community of miners and their families began growing up around them. In honor of the man who opened these mines, the little town was named Schumacher.
As the federal government began turning a critical eye toward patent medicines like the one Schumacher helped sell, the advertising genius decided to call it quits. Instead, he began developing a personal interest in the little Ontario town that now bore his name. There, he got to know the East Europeans who had migrated to this area to work the many silver and gold mines.
Mining was – and still is – a hard way to make a living. It wasn’t just the low wages. It also was the inherent dangers associated with laboring all day underground, with the risk of roof collapses, caveins and the loss of oxygen.
Schumacher noted this early on and turned his attention to those members of the mining families who had the least to say about their living conditions – the children. During one visit to his namesake town, Schumacher requested a census of every child under the age of 16. The count – 270. In late December 1916, Schumacher (the man) traveled by train from Columbus to Schumacher (the town). He carried with him the name and age of each of the nearly 300 children, along with what each of them wanted for Christmas. Stopping in Toronto, Schumacher and an assistant set out on one of the biggest Christmas shopping sprees the city had ever seen.
Continuing northward with a stack of dolls, snow sleds, chemistry sets and just about every other conceivable gift, the kindly gentleman with white hair and beard must have drawn comparisons to Old St. Nick. As a matter of fact, a few years after starting this Christmas gift-giving tradition, Schumacher came face-to-face with a little girl in his northbound train car. “What’s your name,” she asked him. “Why, it’s Mr. Schumacher.” “Uh uh,” she said. “I know who you are. You’re Santa Claus.”
And so he was, in a way, for the next 41 years –until he died in Columbus at the age of 93, in 1957. But because of a trust he had set up at Huntington Bank, Schumacher’s generosity continues to this day, with school students receiving gifts handed out by the town’s volunteer fire brigade. The foundation is coordinated by Schumacher’s descendants.
Ten years ago, Schumacher resident Louise Nightingale Smith was interviewed by a Canadian newspaper concerning a book she had just written about Frederick Schumacher. “I’ve always wanted to know who Mr. Schumacher was because I saw him when he made his last visit to town,” she said. “When he came here, it was such a special affair. All school work stopped; all the activities in the public schools stopped, everything centered on him. We loved him.”
