Biographical Sketch of

Jeremiah Schoff

Transcribed by Jaimee Hedlund

Source: Memorial and Biographical Record and Illustrated Compendium of Biography of Citizens of Columbia, 
Sauk and Adams Counties, Wisconsin, published 1901 by G. A. Ogle & Co., Chicago, 1901, Pages 331 - 332


Jeremiah Merrill Schoff, one of Adam County's most respected citizens, is a resident of Easton Township, where he is 
known as a model farmer and thorough-going business man.
 
Mr. Schoff was born at Brasher, St. Lawrence County, New York, December 8, 1826, son of Jeremiah and Sophia (Woodbury) 
Schoff, who came from Vermont and settled in St. Lawrence about the year 1816, and engaged in farming. Jeremiah Schoff 
died in 1860 and the mother in 1858. Both are buried in Franklin County, New York. Their family consisted of nine 
children, of whom our subject was the seventh in order of birth.
 
Jeremiah Merrill Schoff was reared to manhood in his native state, working at home during the summer months and attending 
school in winter. He learned the cooper's trade at the age of twenty years, and worked two or three years in Boston, 
Massachusetts. In 1848 he went to California, going from Boston by water, via Cape Horn, and the trip to San Francisco 
consumed a period of one hundred and ninety-four days. He went to El Dorado County, where he worked in the mines for 
about two years, meeting with fair success in his adventures. However, his health failed him and he returned to Boston, 
by way of the Isthmus of Panama, and the vessel was seventy days from San Francisco to Panama. He worked about one year 
in Boston, and then returned to Brasher, New York, purchased fifty acres of land and built upon it a residence and barn, 
and thoroughly improved his farm. He conducted this farm about ten years, then sold it and came to Easton, Adams County, 
Wisconsin, arriving there in 1864. He purchased eighty acres of land, most of which was in a state of nature, and this 
he has cultivated and improved, erecting a nice residence, good barns and outbuildings, and making such modern 
improvements as are of practical utility in the process of agriculture. He is now the owner of eighty acres of 
excellent land.
 
Mr. Schoff was married June 12, 1854, to Arabella, daughter of Roderick and Isabella (McKenzie) Grant. The family came 
from Strathmore, Scotland, about the year 1832, and settled in Pictou, Nova Scotia, where represenatives of the family 
still live. Roderick Grant died January 30, 1887, and his wife January 5, 1888, the former at the age of ninety years 
and the latter at eighty-seven. Mr. and Mrs. Schoff have four children, named as follows:  Emma, born May 8, 1855, now 
Mrs. B. Dunn, of La Cross;  Abbie, born September 19, 1857, now Mrs. W. Irwin, of Adams;   Dana M., born August 8, 1862, 
now a farmer of Easton, Wisconsin; and Nettie, born September 11, 1864, now Mrs. C. Lamphere, of Chicago.
 
Mr. Schoff is a republican in political faith, and takes much interest in public matters. He has served his township in 
the capacity of treasurer for a number of years, and his faithfulness to his duties has won him the confidence of all 
without party distinction. He is regarded as a man of more than average business ability and judgement, and he has been 
an important factor in the development of his town and community, and has helped to bring to Adams County much of the 
credit and rank it claims among its sister counties. At the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago, he was awarded a 
medal for the best sample of wheat for milling purposes, in competition with grain from all over the world. This wheat 
was grown on his homestead farm, and is proof of the superior quality of Adams County products when properly cultivated.


Transcribed by Jaimee Hedlund






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