Charles Frederic August Schaeffer

Schaeffer was born in London to Karl August Wilhelm Ferdinand Schäffer, a native of Prussia, and Charlotte Ernestine Dorette Koch of Hannover.

[1][2] When the family returned to Germany, he was educated there and became interested in insects at a very young age.

[3] He was one of the founding members of the Brooklyn Entomological Society in 1892.

He was an active member of the group and in 1898, he became an assistant to William Beutenmuller of the American Museum of Natural History, becoming a curator in 1902 at the Brooklyn Museum Institute of Arts and Sciences.

He made numerous collecting trips mainly in Mount Mitchell, North Carolina; Lower Rio Grande Valley, Texas (Esperanza Ranch east of Brownsville); and the Huachuca Mountains of Arizona.