John Lehman Wideman
Inducted In
1972
John L. Wideman was the postmaster at St. Jacobs for forty-four years from 1865 to 1909.
At sixteen he left the family farm in York County to become a carpenter and at nineteen clerked in the John W. Eby dry goods and drug store in Berlin and later in the George W. Eby general store in St. Jacobs. In 1854 he became a member of the firm of Yost, Winkler and Wideman, general merchants.
An ardent Liberal, Wideman was a member of the Woolwich Township Council 1866-1873; township clerk 1873-1905; clerk of the Seventh Division Court 1867-1893; a notary public from 1879; chairman of the License Board of North Waterloo for ten years; a director of the Waterloo Mutual Fire Insurance Company and a member of the Waterloo Historical Society from its beginning.
He was a very prominent member of the Evangelical Church.