FOW Tour - Schnepf - Saad House

On December 7, 2019 Friends of Wheeling toured 2233 Chapline Street, which we are calling the Schnepf - Saad House.

Deed records and Wheeling City Directories suggest that this house was built in 1878 for German immigrant Christian Schnepf (1848-1903). He purchased the property that year for $3900 (the equivalent of more than $102,000 today) from neighbor Thomas List, a banker who lived at nearby 2201 Chapline Street (
It’s possible that List had the house built. English immigrant Thomas List (1799-1878) had purchased the property in 1863 for $600 (the equivalent of about $12,400 today) and sold it for a considerably higher amount in 1878. However, there’s no evidence that List ever lived in the house.)

Schnepf immigrated as a young child in 1852 and worked as a druggist. His business location was on the first floor of the Reilly Building at the northwest corner of 14th and Market Streets, as seen in a photo from the Brown Collection at the Ohio County Public Library.

He was said to have been known as the “Opera House Druggist” and reportedly made daily observations of the weather for West Virginia, western Pennsylvania, and eastern Ohio.

In 1874 he married Johanna Amelia Bromer (1855-1932), and the couple had five children: Edward Frederick Schnepf (1876-1914), Otto G. Schnepf (1878-1909), Charles Henry Schnepf (1879-1962), Nellie Schnepf (1881-1907), and Emma Anna Schnepf Mehlmann (1887-1971). His widowed mother and his younger brother, cigar maker Frederick Schnepf, also lived at 2233 Chapline Street, according to the 1879 City Directory.

The 1898-99 City Directory describes Schnepf as “druggist and pharmacist; dealer in patent medicines, druggists’ sundries, toilet articles and perfumeries” with the business address of 1335 Market Street (Opera House corner).

Schnepf died of tuberculosis in 1903 at age 54. He is buried in Mt. Zion cemetery. His heirs sold the property in 1909 to Margaret and D.H. Taylor, who then sold it in 1915 to Bernard and Mary Ward. Catherine and Richard O’Brien purchased the property in 1940 and sold it to Grace and Virgil Neidert in 1947.

Thomas and Malenia Khoury Saad purchased the property in 1962, and locals still refer to the property as the Saad house. Their son, Charles “Charlie” Saad (1925-2014), was a noted athletic trainer who was inducted into the Wheeling Hall of Fame in 2017. As an athletic trainer, Charlie Saad traveled the country with major and minor league baseball teams, major college athletic programs, and NBA basketball during a 30-year career that saw him with such professional teams as the Los Angeles Lakers, Chicago White Sox, Oakland A’s, and California Angels and college teams at WVU, University of South Carolina, and West Point. After retiring, he continued a working relationship with the YMCA.

Following Charlie Saad’s death in 2014, the property was left to his niece, Rita Castle, who sold it to the current owner, John Woodring, in 2015. It is currently for sale. Sold in 2021 to Poitiers LLC (Paul Harris).