Jacob Yost Shantz

Jacob Yost Shantz (2 May 1822 – 28 October 1909) was a Mennonite farmer, businessman, and industrialist from Ontario, Canada. He played a significant role in the urban development of Berlin, Ontario (which is now the city of Kitchener), where he held a succession of civic roles over a period of almost three decades, culminating in a term as mayor in 1882. Over the span of his life, Berlin was transformed from a rural agricultural settlement known as Ebytown into a bustling manufacturing centre; this was a change mirrored by Shantz, who began his adult life as a farmer and sawmiller, and ended it as a prominent local industrialist.

Late in his life, he travelled to the newly-colonized province of Manitoba, and subsequently helped tens of thousands of Russian Mennonites to immigrate there from the Russian Empire.