Meeker County MN Archives Biographies.....Snell, John 1831 - 
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 December 25, 2019, 9:03 pm

Source: Alden, Ogle & Co.
Author: See Below

  JOHN SNELL, the leading furniture dealer of Litchfield, is a native of Verina
Island, Sweden, born September 5,1831, and is the son of Andrew and Katherine
(Bergstadt) Snell. He was reared at home until he had attained the age of seventeen,
when he commenced to learn the cabinet-maker’s trade, and served an apprenticeship
at that until he was twenty-one years old. He then determined to emigrate to the New
World, the “promised land” of the poor of the old countries, and, accordingly set
sail for New York. For eighteen months after landing there he was employed in John
Olander’s piano manufactory in the metropolis of America, after which time he
removed to Galesburg, Ill., and for a year was engaged at his trade. Coming still
farther west after a short time spent in St. Paul, he located in Carver, Carver
county, Minn., in 1854. That village had just been laid out, and as an inducement to
have so excellent a mechanic settle among them, Mr. Snell was given a lot in the
village upon which to build. He put up a house there, and commenced making chairs,
tables, etc., by hand, using one room in his house for a shop. Later on he erected a
small mill that ran by water-power, which greatly facilitated his work, and
remained, actively engaged in trade in that place until 1874, when he sold out his
interests there and removed to Chicago. In the latter city he was engaged in
carrying on the photographic business, he having acquired some knowledge of that art
while living in Carver. In 1877 he came to Litchfield and purchased his present
business, to which he has added, undertaking, and has been employed in that ever
since. In 1879 he began the erection of his present handsome quarters, finishing it
the next year. It is a fine brick building of some eighty feet front, and
corresponding depth, and one of the handsomest in the village.

  Mr. Snell was married while in New York, in 1852, to Miss Esther Peterson, who
died May 13,1864, in Carver, leaving two children— Clara A., born May 15, 1858, now
the wife of William Murdock, a business man of Chicago ; and Hilda E., born January
8,1862, now Mrs. E. M. Warhanich. whose husband is a druggist in the same city. Mr.
Snell was again married July 26, 1865, to Miss Ida Peterson, who has been the mother
of three children, only one of whom is living— Alvin O., horn March 17, 1867. Those
deceased were Ida, born April 26, 1866, and died November 12, 1883; and Julian Paul,
born May 5, 1870, and died July 13, 1872. Mrs. Snell was born August 17, 1830, and
is a most estimable woman.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:
Illustrated Album of Biography
Meeker and McLeod Counties, Minnesota
1888


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