Monmouth County NJ Archives Biographies.....Sneden, William S. 1829 - 1905
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  Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 November 8, 2008, 4:33 pm
  
  Author: Mary Depue Ogden, Editor  (1917)
  
  SNEDEN, William S.,
  Civil Engineer, Railroad Manager.
  
    In 1657 there came from Amsterdam, Holland, to New Amsterdam (New York) Jan
  Sneden, arriving with his brother Claes on the ship "St. Jean Baptiste." Of the
  seventh American generation, descendants of Jan Sneden, was William S. Sneden,
  of Red Bank, New Jersey, son of Samuel Sneden, a boat builder of Piermont, New
  York, and grandson of John Sneden, a soldier of the Revolution, whom tradition
  says, guided the captors of Major Andre with their prisoner, across the Hudson
  to Sneden's Landing, thence to the American lines, at Tappan, New York. The
  family home was at Sneden's Landing, Rockland county, New York, and one of the
  treasures of George V. Sneden, of the eighth American generation, is a desk upon
  which it is said General Washington wrote the order for Major Andre's execution.
  
    Samuel Sneden, of the sixth American generation, son of John Sneden, was a
  boat builder, and is said to have invented the centre board for sailing craft,
  and early in the nineteenth century he built at least one steam-boat. He married
  Maria Verbryck, daughter of Samuel Gerritsen Verbryck, an officer in Captain
  Ward's company of New Jersey State militia stationed at Hackensack, New Jersey,
  and after the war served for twenty-one years as a member of the New York State
  Legislature, granddaughter of the Rev. Samuel Verbryck, pastor of the Reformed
  Church at Tappan, New York, during the War of the Revolution, who later secured
  from the Governor of New Jersey the charter for Queen's (now Rutgers) College at
  New Brunswick, New Jersey, and a descendant of an early Dutch settler in New York.
  
    William S. Sneden, son of Samuel and Maria (Verbryck) Sneden, was born in
  Piermont, Rockland county. New York, January 2, 1829, and died in Red Bank, New
  Jersey, April 14, 1905. He obtained the necessary educational training, became a
  civil engineer, and spent his entire professional life in railroad constructive
  and managerial work. His first work was done for the New York & Lake Erie
  railroad, becoming in 1849 assistant engineer of the Dauphin & Susquehanna
  railroad. After four years' service with that company he accepted an offer to go
  west with an engineering party bound for St. Louis, Missouri, and with that
  party he made the first survey for the proposed Ohio & Mississippi railroad.
  Later he spent three years in Virginia as chief engineer of the Fredericksburg &
  Gordonsville railroad, and then returned north. He was chief engineer of the
  Northern railroad of New Jersey, 1857-60, then spent six years as first
  assistant engineer, superintendent and lessee of the Raritan & Delaware Bay
  railroad, later known as the New Jersey Southern, a road which in 1874 he was
  for a short time in charge of as receiver, and general manager for the
  bondholders' trustees, who operated the road, until 1880. Mr. Sneden was
  associated with other roads, notably the Northern Central, the Jacksonville, St.
  Augustine & Halifax River, the New York, Boston & Montreal, the Jacksonville,
  Tampa & Key West, the Central Railroad of New Jersey, and the road that proved
  the great factor in New Jersey coast development, the New York & Long Branch
  Railroad, built by the Central Railroad of New Jersey. This road, connecting New
  York with Long Branch, Asbury Park and the coast towns south as far as Point
  Pleasant, was located by William S. Sneden, and is the work by which he is best
  known to the residents of New Jersey. But his life was a long succession of
  equally important work and potent in developing many sections of the country. He
  did not confine his work to steam roads, but planned, surveyed and superintended
  the construction of several electric lines.
  
    After settling permanently in Red Bank, New Jersey, Mr. Sneden served on the
  board of water commissioners, and planned and was in charge of the erection of
  the reservoir and water works system that supplies Red Bank. His life was a
  busy, useful one, and all over this great land, east, west, north and south,
  stand monuments to his professional skill, constructive ability and managerial
  wisdom. While never out of the harness entirely, his later years were spent in
  Red Bank in quietude and comfort. He was honored in his profession, belonging to
  several engineering societies, and was held in esteem by a very large circle of
  acquaintances in many states of the Union. He was a Democrat in politics, a
  member of the Dutch Reformed church in Piermont, but he was an attendant of the
  Presbyterian church in Red Bank.
  
    Mr. Sneden married, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, October 21, 1850, Mary
  Elizabeth, born in Dauphin county, Pennsylvania, March 21, 1831, daughter of
  Hiram Henry and Mary (Hochlander) Hetzel, descendants of old German Pennsylvania
  families. Margaret Hetzel and her daughter, Susan Riviere Hetzel, of this
  family, were among the founders of the National Society of the Daughters of the
  American Revolution. Major Abner Riviere Hetzel, husband of Margaret, was a
  graduate of West Point, an officer in the Mexican War, and the engineer who
  designed and constructed the Delaware Breakwater. Children of Mr. and Mrs.
  Sneden: 1. William Louis, born January 6, 1854, died December 25, 1897.
  unmarried. 2. George Virginius, born January 26, 1856. at Fredericksburg,
  Virginia; a resident of Red Bank, New Jersey; engineer, Maintenance of Way, New
  York & Long Branch railroad; married, October 26, 1881, Ella A. Curtis, of
  Holmdel, New Jersey. 3. Annie May, born May 18, 1862, died August 22, 1904;
  married Edward Delafield Smith. 4. Riviere Hetzel, born September 5, 1866, died
  July 3, 1896; married Anna Grant Hubbard, who with daughter Doris Riviere
  survive. 5. Mary Hetzel, born January 2, 1871, died April 6, 1909. Mrs. Sneden,
  the mother of these children, died in Red Bank, New Jersey, June 29, 1904, her
  husband surviving her death but ten months.
  
  
  Additional Comments:
  
  Extracted from:
  
  MEMORIAL CYCLOPEDIA OF NEW JERSEY
  
  UNDER THE EDITORIAL SUPERVISION OF MARY DEPUE OGDEN
  
  VOLUME III
  MEMORIAL HISTORY COMPANY NEWARK,  NEW JERSEY
  1917
  
  
  Photo: http://www.usgwarchives.net/nj/monmouth/photos/bios/sneden21nbs.jpg
  
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