George W. Snow Biography


	This biography appears on pages 1793-1795 in "History of South 
	Dakota" by Doane Robinson, Vol. II (1904) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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	HON. GEORGE W. SNOW, of Springfield, Bon Homme county, lieutenant 
governor of the state of South Dakota, is a native of the state of 
Indiana, having been horn in Posey county, on the 13th of December, 
1842. His father, Augustus F. Snow, was born in the city of Pittsburg, 
Pennsylvania, on the 21st of March, 1816, and was a miller by trade and 
vocation, having been the owner of a flouring mill in Grant county, 
Wisconsin, at the time of his death, which occurred on the 13th of 
February, 1886. His wife, whose maiden name was Catherine M. Feit, was 
born in Baltimore, Maryland, on he 28th of July, 1819, and their 
marriage was solemnized on the 9th of April 1837. She died near 
Montfort, Wisconsin, December 11, 1848. They became the parents of four 
sons, all of whom are dead except the subject of this sketch. The 
genealogy in both the paternal and maternal lines traces back to staunch 
German origin. Governor Snow was about two years of age at the time of 
his parents' removal from Indiana to Wisconsin, in which state he was 
reared and educated completing the curriculum of the common schools and 
a local academy and taking a thorough course in a commercial college in 
Madison, the capital of the state, in which institution he was graduated 
as a member of the class of 1866. The father of our subject located on a 
farm in Grant county, Wisconsin, at the time of taking up his residence 
there, in 1845, and in 1854 he engaged in the general merchandise 
business at Montfort, that county, where he remained until 1858, when he 
removed with his family to Beatrice Nebraska but returned to Grant 
county, Wisconsin, the next autumn and again resumed agricultural 
pursuits and milling. The subject of this review remained on the 
homestead farm until his father engaged in the mercantile business, when 
he became an assistant in the store, while after the return of the 
family to Grant county he aided in the work and management of the farm 
until there came the call to higher duty: the rebellion of the south 
having caused the tocsin of war to be sounded. In August, 1862, Mr. Snow 
enlisted as private in Company F, Twentieth Wisconsin Volunteer 
Infantry, for a term of "three years or until the close of the war." He 
continued in active service with his command until victory had crowned 
the Union arms, having been mustered out and having received his 
honorable discharge in August, 1865. He participated in several im-
portant and hotly contested battles, including that of Prairie Grove, 
Arkansas, and took part in the memorable sieges of Vicksburg, Spanish 
Fort and Mobile, being present at the capitulation of the last named 
city, while he was also with his command in numerous skirmishes and 
other minor engagements, proving himself a valiant and faithful soldier 
of the republic whose integrity he thus aided in perpetuating.

	After the close of his military service Mr. Snow returned to 
Wisconsin and completed a course in a commercial college in Madison, as 
previously noted. Thereafter he was employed as clerk in a general store 
at Dodgeville, that state, until 1869, when he came as a pioneer to what 
is now the state of South Dakota, settling in Springfield, Bon Homme 
county, which was then a mere straggling frontier village, and here he 
has thus maintained his home for thirty-five years, being one of the 
pioneers of the town and state and having ever been loyal to both. Here 
he became identified with the operation of a sawmill and for a time was 
clerk in one of the first general stores in the town, while he availed 
himself of the opportunities which presented in connection with the 
development and material progress of the state, and soon found himself 
well advanced on the highway of definite and distinctive success. He 
began dealing in real estate in the early years of his residence here 
and largely through this medium has he gained independence and 
prosperity, while he is at the present time the owner of several 
thousand acres of valuable land in Bon Homme and adjoining counties. He 
has shown a public-spirited interest in all that has appertained to the 
civic and material advancement of his home town and has aided liberally 
in the support of all legitimate public enterprises, having been largely 
instrumental in securing the location of the State Normal School in 
Springfield. In politics he has given an unequivocal allegiance to the 
Republican party from his early manhood to the present time. He has 
served in various offices of public trust and responsibility, including 
that of justice of the peace, member of the board of education and 
county treasurer, to which last he was incumbent two terms of two years 
each. He was a member of the constitutional convention of 1885, while in 
1890-1 he represented his district in the state senate, as did he again 
in 1897-8, and in 1901 he was elected lieutenant governor of the state, 
serving with signal ability and being chosen as his own successor in the 
election of November, 1903, SO that he remains in tenure of this 
important office at the present time. Mr. Snow effected the organization 
of the Bank of Springfield in 1883, and is its principal stockholder, 
giving personal supervision to its management and being its president, 
while he is also a large stockholder in the Bank of Monroe, at Monroe, 
Nebraska. He still continues to deal extensively in real estate and 
controls a large amount of valuable realty, offering most attractive 
investments. He and his wife are attendants and supporters of the church 
of the Ascension, Protestant Episcopal, of which the latter is a 
communicant. Mr. Snow has been identified with the Independent Order of 
Odd Fellows since 1867, and is past grand master of the grand lodge of 
the order in the state, while he is at the present time grand treasurer. 
He has attained to the thirty-second degree in the Masonic fraternity, 
with which he has been identified since 1881, and is past grand 
treasurer of the grand lodge, while he is also past grand patron of the 
allied organization, the Order of the Eastern Star. He is one of the 
appreciative and honored members of General Steadman Post, No. 38, Grand 
Army of the Republic, and the hold which he has upon the esteem and 
confidence of his comrades in the same is significantly intimated in the 
fact that he has served as commander of the post for the past fourteen 
years, while during 1901-2 he had the notable distinction of being 
department commander of the order in South Dakota.

	In Yankton, this state, in April, 1874, Mr. Snow was united in 
marriage to Miss Sylvia L. Tyler, who died in May, 1878, leaving one 
child, Harry, whose death occurred in the following August. In February, 
1882, he consummated a second marriage, being then united to Mrs. Al-
berta M. Davison, nee Mead, and they have two sons, George G., who was 
born on the 4th of January, 1884, and who is a member of the class of 
1903 in the celebrated University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, and Frank 
M., who was born on the 6th of August, 1888, and who is now a student in 
the South Dakota State Normal School, in his home town.