Johann Christoph Schneider was born in Germany, in Unteröwisheim, Baden, on August 27, 1831. His father, a farmer, was also Johann Christoph Schneider; his mother was Margarethe Elizabeth Zoller. He left Germany in 1847 when he was sixteen years old and settled in Berlin (now Kitchener), Ontario, where a substantial German settlement already existed. He worked as a carpenter and later as a mechanic, and by 1858 was a building contractor. He married Anna Elizabeth Metz on April 26, 1857 and started married life in a house on what is now College St. in Kitchener. Together they had seven children, of whom John Metz Schneider was the first.

In 1860 Schneider purchased a 100-acre farm in what is now the Victoria/Lawrence St. area of Kitchener, cleared the land and spent the next thirty-seven years as a farmer. He contributed to the growth of Berlin as a builder, helping to construct buildings such as the Waterloo County Court House and the Breithaupt tanneries. He was also a founding member of the Church of the New Jerusalem, a Swedenborgian congregation. He died December 20, 1900 and was buried at Mount Hope Cemetery.