Jacob Schroder

Jacob Schroder (August 7, 1807; Konigeich, Hanover - December 20, 1881; Walhalla, South Carolina) was one of the original members of the German Colonization Society, and is one of the founding fathers of Walhalla, South Carolina.

At the age of eighteen, and less then twenty five cents in his pocket he left the old country, and arrived in Charleston where he took part in the family grocery buisness, as well as coal. Illis, his father, was a very poor man who acquired a great dept. Eventually officers of the law made it clear that they'd forcefully sell the family furnishings if they had to, to which Jacob pledged he would pay off the dept before such could be done, for one of the items threatened to be taken from them, was the bed of his sick mother. To pay off the dept he returned to Germany, and after acquiring the proper funds came back to the states to pay off the dept, and purchased a home for his father.

In 1850 the German Colonization Society purchased larged volumes of land to establish a colony of Germans in the upstate, and thus founded the city of Walhalla where Jacob would settle. Jacob Schroder became the last president of the society, and tied up the buisness much to the satisfaction of his piers.

In his 75th year Jacob Schroder died a German citizen on Tuesday at 3 o'clock in the evening of kidney disease. At the time of his death he had thirteen living children born to him, of whom only nine where old enough for inheritance.