Lake County IN Archives Biographies.....Sheerer, George B. 1866 - 
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Author: T. H. Ball (1904)

GEORGE B. SHEERER.

    George B. Sheerer, a prominent attorney-at-law of Hammond, Indiana, has
gained a successful position in the legal profession by his own merits. He is of
the type of self-made men of whom this country is so proud. It is certainly no
mean achievement for a boy to start to earning his own way at the age of eleven,
afterwards as a result of his labor attend school and make up in an educational
way what he had been retarded in getting when a boy, take a law course and gain
admission to the bar, and then rise to a place of prominence among his
fellow-practitioners in the great profession of law. Mr. Sheerer has been
engaged in practice in Hammond since 1892, and is held in high esteem in the
city and surrounding country.

    Mr. Sheerer was born in Shickshinny, Pennsylvania, December 24, 1866, a son
of Benjamin F. and Elizabeth (Fritz) Sheerer. His paternal grandfather, John M.
Sheerer, was the original Sheerer who came from southern Scotland to America,
locating in Wayne county, Pennsylvania, where he spent most of his life. He was
a canal and railroad contractor, and was a very wealthy man, at one time owning
all the land on which the present city of Scranton stands. He was a soldier in
the war of 1812. He died at the age of eighty-eight years, having been a man of
remarkable constitution and manly vigor. He was never sick a day in his life,
never took a dose of medicine. When he was eighty-four years old he was
physically very active. He died from the result of an injury, his back having
been wrenched while he was mowing. His wife lived still longer, passing away at
the age of ninety-two years. Her maiden name was Susan Stitely. They had a large
family.

    Benjamin F. Sheerer, the father of George B. Sheerer, was a Baptist
minister, and has made home missionary work the principal object of his
endeavors all his life. He came out west to Illinois in an early day, and bought
one hundred and fifty acres of land where the Chicago business center now is,
but he afterwards sold out and went back east. He is now living at Waterton,
Luzerne county, Pennsylvania, being in his eighty-eighth year. His wife,
Elizabeth (Fritz) Sheerer, is in her seventy-ninth year. Her father, Lucius
Fritz, came from Germany when a young man and located in Pennsylvania, where he
was a farmer. He had been a soldier in a German war, and was also in the war of
1812. He married Miss Mary Gorman, and they had eleven children. He died at the
age of sixty-seven, and she when about seventy-three.

    Eight children were born to Benjamin F. and Elizabeth Sheerer, and the six
now living are: Friend B., of Town Hill, Pennsylvania; Alfred N., of Burwick,
Pennsylvania; Marion M., of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin; George B., of Hammond;
Matilda, the wife of R. Gregory, of Muhlenberg, Pennsylvania; and Millard, of
Miners Mills, Pennsylvania. The two deceased children were Layton L., who was
president of the Colfax Seminary, at Colfax, Washington; and Celinda, the wife
of Rev. James R. Wilson, of Syracuse, New York.

    George B. Sheerer lived at home in Waterton, Pennsylvania., until eleven
years of age, and received his first schooling there. He then started out to
make his own way, working during the summer at three dollars a month and board,
and going to school during the winter. He taught school in the east for some
time, beginning when he was seventeen years old. In 1884 he came west to Indiana
and entered the normal school at Valparaiso, where he was graduated in the law
department in 1889. In the same year he was admitted to the bar of the state.
After his graduation he at once set to work to pay up his debts contracted in
his efforts to school himself. In the fall of 1892 he opened his office for
practice in Hammond, and has enjoyed an increasing patronage to the present time.

    November 16, 1892, Mr. Sheerer married Miss May E. Wertman, a daughter of
John and Elizabeth Wertman. They have two children, Gertrude and Mildred. Mrs.
Sheerer is a member of the Baptist church. They reside at 50 Warren avenue,
where he built a good home in 1900. Mr. Sheerer affiliates with the Calumet
Lodge No. 601, I. O. O. F., and with Hammond Lodge No. 210, K. of P. He is
independent in voting, but his general political cleavage is Democratic. He is
treasurer of the board of education, and has been a member of the board for the
past six years.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

ENCYCLOPEDIA
OF
Genealogy and Biography
OF
LAKE COUNTY, INDIANA,
WITH A COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY 
1834—1904

A Record of the Achievements of Its People in the Making of a Commonwealth and
the Founding of a Nation.

REV. T. H. BALL
OF CROWN POINT, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
ILLUSTRATED
CHICAGO   NEW YORK
THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
1904


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