Johann Christoph Schneider was born in Germany, in Unteröwisheim, Baden, on August 27, 1831. His father, a farmer, was also Johann Christoph Schneider; his mother was Margarethe Elizabeth Zoller. He left Germany in 1847 when he was sixteen years old and settled in Berlin (now Kitchener), Ontario, where a substantial German settlement already
existed. He worked as a carpenter and later as a mechanic, and by 1858 was a building contractor. He married Anna Elizabeth Metz on April 26, 1857. They had seven children, of
whom John Metz Schneider, founder of the meat packing firm later known as the Schneider Corp., was the first.

Johann Christoph Schneider contributed to the physical growth of Berlin as a builder, helping construct buildings such as the Waterloo County Court House and the Breithaupt
tanneries. In 1860 he purchased a 100-acre farm in what is now the Victoria/Lawrence St. area of Kitchener, cleared the land and spent the next thirty-seven years as a farmer. He was a founding member of the Church of the New Jerusalem, a Swedenborgian congregation. In politics he was “a staunch supporter of Reform principles.” (Obituary) He died in 1900.

The descendants of Johann Christoph Schneider played active roles in business, politics, the cultural and social life of the area from the nineteenth century to the present day.