Over a century of giving

MINING LORE

Over a century of giving

By Tijana Mitrovic

For over a hundred years, the children of Timmins’ Schumacher neighbourhood have received a little something under their Christmas trees from a special benefactor, a mining entrepreneur named Frederick W. Schumacher. Courtesy of Columbus Library By 1922, Ontario was producing one million ounces of gold annually. Schumacher had acquired multiple mining operations in northern Ontario, the U.S. and Mexico over the years, and he began selling the operations and land for great profits.

Schumacher, a Danish immi- He sold his operation near Aura grant, was working as a pharma- Lake to the Hollinger Company cist and patent medicine for $1.7 million. wholesaler in Waco, Texas, in the Schumacher continued to late 19th century when he build his fortune. After a few ordered a full train-car of Peruna attempts, he ultimately sold medicine, meant to cure exces- another one of his Porcupine sive congestion known as lots to the Dome Company. He catarrh. had first offered to sell the land

When Dr. Samuel Hartman, to the company in 1911 at the the high-society doctor of Colum- height of the rush asking for bus, Ohio, who invented Peruna, $75,000. When the company heard the size of the order, Hart- rejected this initial price, he man decided to personally doubled it. Each time Dome’s deliver the shipment to Texas. management rejected his offer, Upon meeting Schumacher, Hart- he would double the price, until man asked Schumacher to come negotiations finally broke down to Ohio and work for him. at $600,000.

In Columbus, Schumacher It was Schumacher who got eventually took over the adver- the last laugh: in 1936 Dome tising for the drug. Peruna was desperate, as it was now became extremely popular certain its ore continued onto across the country. At its peak, his land. Dome finally bought product sales reached the lot for over $1.1 million and US$100,000 per day and Peruna Frederick W. Schumacher became the namesake of the Schumacher 20,000 company shares, which became the largest-selling pro- neighbourhood in Timmins, Ontario. were themselves worth prietary medicine in the U.S. $600,000 at the time. despite it being little more than a mix of water and alcohol. Once Schumacher’s mines were all sold, he continued the traPeruna’s success turned Schumacher into one of the Colum- dition of giving back to the community, and eventually Aura Lake bus’s wealthiest men. became the town of Schumacher. Even when the town of Schu-

After the Food and Drug Administration passed a new Pure macher became incorporated into Timmins, he kept up his yearly Food and Drug Act in 1906, leading Hartman and Schumacher to tradition of distributing Christmas gifts to the community’s dilute the medicine, Schumacher made a career change. He children. joined the rush to northern Ontario to find precious metals. Schumacher died in Columbus, Ohio, in 1957 at the age of 93.

The Porcupine area had become the site of a gold rush after He included a provision in his will to establish a foundation to several prospectors struck gold in 1909. The area known as the keep the gift-giving tradition going: the F. W. Schumacher “Golden stairway” would become home to the Dome, Hollinger Christmas Gift Fund. In the 1970s, the volunteer fire brigade of and McIntyre mines. Schumacher took over buying the presents for the neighbour-

By 1914, Schumacher had sunk a shaft and started a mine on hood children on behalf of the fund. Each year the volunteer firea lot he had purchased for $25,000 by the town of Aura Lake in fighters, many of whom grew up in the Schumacher the Porcupine camp. neighbourhood and received gifts from the fund themselves,

Schumacher soon became well acquainted with the town and purchase, wrap and distribute gifts to the elementary-schoolits people. For the Christmas of 1916, he made the gold-fever aged children. induced promise of presents for the children of every miner in The children of the neighbourhood continue to receive gifts in town. the name of F.W. Schumacher: snake-oil pitchman, mining speculator and community benefactor. CIM