SYLVESTER SNYDER

SNYDER

Posted By: Jake Tornholm (email)
Date: 4/21/2020 at 11:40:52

SYLVESTER SNYDER is a pioneer of Adams county. He has been a resident of the county since the spring of 1855 is well known here, and a resume of his life will be found of interest to many. Briefly it is as follows:

Sylvester Snyder was born in Cattaraugus county, New York, August 10, 1835, son of Peter Snyder, a native of Montgomery county, same State. Grandfather Jacob Snyder was born in Holland and was among the first Holland Dutch settlers of New York State. He was a Revolutionary soldier. Peter Snyder was married in Montgomery county to Hannah Cornwell, a native of that place and also of Dutch extraction.

The subject of our sketch was a lad of eight years when his parents moved to Jo Daviess county, Illinois, and settled two miles and a half west of Warren. Here young Snyder grew up on a farm and received his education in the common schools. He helped to build the first railroad through the county, and also worked on the Mineral Point railroad north of Warren.

In 1855 the Snyder family came to Adams county, Iowa, being among the earliest settlers here. They first located in Washington township and in 1875 moved to Carl township, where the parents passed the rest of their days and died, the father at the age of eighty-one years and the mother, seventy-five. Both were worthy members of the Methodist Episcopal church. The father was a Democrat before the war, but a Republican after the organization of that party. Their family consisted of five children. One son, Fred, entered the service of his country as a member of the Twenty-ninth Iowa Infantry, and died at Keokuk in 1864. Sylvester offered his services, but was rejected on account of a crippled finger. Another brother, Mark, also enlisted and was not accepted into the service.

In 1861 the subject of our sketch settled on eighty acres of wild land in section 17, Carl township. This he sold in 1870 and bought his present farm of 160 acres, then wild land. He now has a good farm, well adapted for stock or grain, and improved with buildings, orchard, grove, etc.

Mr. Snyder was married in Adams county, Iowa, in 1858, to Miss Elizabeth Hamon, a lady of intelligence and culture and an efficient teacher before her marriage. Her father, Lewis Hamon, of Corning, Iowa, is one of the pioneers of Adams county. Mrs. Snyder was born in Illinois and reared in Jones county, Iowa. They have had sixteen children, thirteen of whom are living, viz.: Frank W., Lane S., Cora V., Grant W., Avanelle M., Jennie R., John R., Ada S., Nanny A., Minerva E., Ethel E., Irene B. and Lola M. Lilly, John and an infant son are deceased.

Mr. Snyder's political relations are with the Greenback party.