1842 – 1915•Green-Wood Cemetery

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Charles Adolph Schieren was born on February 28, 1842 in Neuss, then in the Rhine Province of Prussia. He joined his family in Brooklyn as a teenager and learned business first in his father's cigar trade, then in a leather belting house in New York. By his early twenties he had founded the Charles A. Schieren Company, which grew into one of the country's leading makers of industrial belting. He also became active in civic and cultural life, serving as an officer or trustee of several Brooklyn financial institutions and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

A committed Republican reformer, he helped reorganize the party in Brooklyn and was elected mayor of the City of Brooklyn for the term 1894 to 1895. During his administration the city expanded its parklands, rebuilt Wallabout Market, and advanced plans for the Williamsburg Bridge. He advocated consolidation with New York City and later served on state and national commissions, including work on Erie Canal improvements and relief efforts during the Spanish American War period.

He married Marie Louise Bramm in 1865 and they raised their family in Brooklyn, where his sons entered the firm and continued the business. Charles Schieren died at home of pneumonia on March 10, 1915 in Brooklyn at the age of seventy three. His wife died the next day. They were buried together at Green Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

His grave is well known for its bronze figure of the Angel of Death, often called the Grim Reaper, a haunting hooded memorial created by sculptor Solon Borglum. The statue has made the Schieren plot one of the cemetery's most photographed and visited sites.

Charles Adolph Schieren was born on February 28, 1842 in Neuss, then in the Rhine Province of Prussia. He joined his family in Brooklyn as a teenager and learned business first in his father's cigar trade, then in a leather belting house in New York. By his early twenties he had founded the Charles A. Schieren Company, which grew into one of the country's leading makers of industrial belting. He also became active in civic and cultural life, serving as an officer or trustee of several Brooklyn financial institutions and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

A committed Republican reformer, he helped reorganize the party in Brooklyn and was elected mayor of the City of Brooklyn for the term 1894 to 1895. During his administration the city expanded its parklands, rebuilt Wallabout Market, and advanced plans for the Williamsburg Bridge. He advocated consolidation with New York City and later served on state and national commissions, including work on Erie Canal improvements and relief efforts during the Spanish American War period.

He married Marie Louise Bramm in 1865 and they raised their family in Brooklyn, where his sons entered the firm and continued the business. Charles Schieren died at home of pneumonia on March 10, 1915 in Brooklyn at the age of seventy three. His wife died the next day. They were buried together at Green Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

His grave is well known for its bronze figure of the Angel of Death, often called the Grim Reaper, a haunting hooded memorial created by sculptor Solon Borglum. The statue has made the Schieren plot one of the cemetery's most photographed and visited sites.

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