Grundy County IL Archives Biographies.....Snyder, Harry E 
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Deb Haines ddhaines@gmail.com March 25, 2006, 10:44 pm

Author: Bio/Gen Record LaSalle/Grundy 1900

HARRY E. SNYDER.

The pioneer in business is as interesting a character as the pioneer in 
agriculture. There are many pioneer farmers to each pioneer man of affairs, 
and the business man often supplies advice to other classes of men which makes 
him an invaluable member of the community; and the sons of such pioneers who 
are able to take up the burden of enterprises raised to the plane of success 
represent the best business brain of this age of advancement.

Harry E. Snyder, a grain merchant at Gardner, Grundy county, represents one of 
the oldest business interests of that town, he being the successor to his 
father, Chester K. Snyder, in the business which the latter had established in 
1875. Among the representative men of Gardner and of Grundy county who have 
passed away Chester K. Snyder was conspicuous. His residence at Gardner dated 
from 1854, the year the town was laid out and the Chicago and Alton Railroad 
was constructed to that point. He was therefore a pioneer of the town and no 
man was more closely identified with early and later business interests than 
he.

Chester K. Snyder was born in Wayne county, New York, April 23, 1832. His 
parents were natives of the Empire state. His father, Amos Snyder, was born in 
1801, and his death occurred in 1875. His mother, whose maiden name was Sally 
Enos, was born in 1806 and passed away in 1873. Amos Snyder was a prominent 
man in the community in which he lived, and at one time was the county judge 
of Wayne county. Chester K. Snyder, the fifth in a family of six children, was 
educated in the public schools of his native place and at the age of nineteen 
years learned the business of telegraphy, and for a period of three years, 
immediately preceding his coming to Illinois, was telegraph operator in his 
native state, and also for a time in Canada and Kentucky.

Soon after his arrival in Gardner, in 1854, Mr. Snyder became the first 
railroad agent here and he was also the agent at Dwight and Williamsville. In 
1857 he engaged in the lumber and grain business at Williamsville, but in 1861 
returned to Gardner and took up the cultivation of a farm that he had 
previously purchased. He continued farming and railroading until 1875, when he 
engaged in the grain and lumber business at Gardner. He carried on this 
enterprise until he retired from active life in 1887. He died in April, 1891. 

Mr. Snyder was a successful business man and in all respects a most useful 
citizen, patriotic and public-spirited to an unusual degree and generously 
helpful to all worthy local interests. He was married November 17, 1857, to 
Polly J. Holland, who was born in Cayuga county, New York, in May, 1836, and 
is still living.

Harry E. Snyder, son of Chester K. and Polly J. (Holland) Snyder, and his 
father's successor in business, was born on his father's farm near Gardner, 
September 15, 1861. He was educated in the public schools at Gardner and at a 
business college at Chicago, Illinois. He engaged in business with his father, 
in 1882, under the firm name of C. K. Snyder & Son. In 1887, upon the 
retirement of Chester K. Snyder from the business, his interests were 
purchased by Harry E. Snyder and Henry Leach. Harry E. Snyder became sole 
proprietor in 1897. Mr. Snyder married Miss Laura Leese, and they have two 
children, named Ira and Ione.

There is no movement tending to the improvement of public interest that does 
not receive Mr. Snyder's prompt and earnest indorsement and helpful 
assistance, for he has inherited somewhat of his father's public spirit along 
with the business ability, which has not only insured his own advancement but 
also contributed to that of the community at large.


Additional Comments:
Source:  Biographical and Genealogical Record of La Salle and Grundy County, 
Illinois, Volume 11, Chicago, 1900, p732-733

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