SCHAFFER, MOSES (1868 LIVING 1926)

SCHAFFER, MOSES, retail merchant and mill owner; b. Austria, 2 Jun 1868, s/o Henry? Leib? Schaffer and Livia? Wizmitzer; m. 1st, Helen Weidenfeld, and 2nd, 1919, Bertha Ogenstein (Augenstein); living in 1926.

In the census of 1901, it is stated that Moses Schaffer, a Hebrew merchant of Austrian origin, entered Canada in 1891 and was naturalized in 1894. The same return states that his daughter Esther Schaffer was born in Austria in 1891 and entered the country with her mother in 1896. In a different source, "oppression" is cited as the reason for the family's departure from Austria.

Schaffer had a store in Chatham in the 1890s, but the business failed, and he assigned in 1898. He soon moved to Blackville, where at first he was "a peddler with a pack on his back who sold jackknives, mouth organs, trinkets, ribbons, etc." He later rented Jacob Layton's premises and then built a "first class" department store of his own. His was one of the first Blackville businesses to have electric lights, which were run by power bought from 'Archie' Alcorn.

In July 1908, Schaffer came home from Fredericton on an excursion train filled with rambunctious Miramichi Orangemen. At the Blackville station, the excursionists seized him and threw him roughly from the train. He was so severely injured when he landed that it took several months for him to recover in hospital. After his release, he sued his assailants, and in 1912, the Exchequer Court of Canada awarded him $2,800 in damages and costs.

Schaffer was a proud Canadian and was at pains to prove his patriotism. Because he was too old to join the forces in World War I, and because he had no sons to send into battle, he engaged a surrogate to enlist and fight on his behalf. He paid this man a per diem in addition to his soldier's pay.

Schaffer was named a justice of the peace in 1916 in conjunction with his appointment as a vendor under the Intoxicating Liquors Act. He later diversified his business further by entering the lumber industry. He had a lath mill at Blackville in 1922, and he lost a stock of lumber on the Newcastle wharf when the former Hickson sawmill burned in 1923. His lumbering and milling operations were incorporated as M. Schaffer Ltd, of which he, his wife, a daughter, and two Saint John businessmen were the incorporators.

Schaffer's first wife died in 1919, leaving him and three daughters. "Feeling that it is not well for man to live alone," he was remarried in Montreal six months later to a woman thirteen years his junior. There were strong family connections with Montreal, where Bernetta Schaffer attended McGill University, and her sister Esther had a fashionable Westmount wedding in 1916.

Schaffer sold his business in 1925 or soon afterwards.