George W. Snow Biography


	This biography appears on pages 1060-1062 in "History of Dakota 
	Territory" by George W. Kingsbury, Vol. IV (1915) and was 
	scanned, OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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				GEORGE W. SNOW. 

	When George W. Snow, a successful real-estate and insurance man 
of Springfield, South Dakota, first came to the territory, on the 24th 
of November, 1869, all that there was of Springfield was one family who 
were living in a dugout. Although he did not remain long on that visit, 
he returned the following year and settled permanently in the state, so 
that he is one of the earliest pioneers who are yet living. 

	Mr. Snow was born in Posey county, Indiana, on the 13th of 
December, 1842, and is a son of Augustus Frank and Catherine M. (Feit) 
Snow, the former born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on the 21st of 
March, 1816, and the latter in Baltimore, Maryland, on the 28th of 
July, 1819. Their marriage occurred in Posey county, Indiana, on the 
4th of April, 1837, and they remained there until December, 1848, when 
they removed to Monfort, Grant county, Wisconsin. Their son, George W., 
enlisted in August, 1862, in Company F, Twentieth Wisconsin Volunteer 
Infantry, and served in the Union army until the close of the Civil 
war. He participated in the battle of Prairie Grove, Arkansas, on 
December 7, 1862; sieges of Vicksburg, Mississippi, and Mobile, Spanish 
Fort and Fort Morgan, Alabama, and other engagements. He was at Spanish 
Fort when the news came of Lee's surrender and Lincoln,s assassination. 
Later his regiment was sent to Galveston to quell border disturbances 
and he saw service even in Mexico, the United States troops crossing 
the border to make peace between the insurrectors and the established 
authorities during the Maximilian regime. He was mustered out July 14, 
1865, at Galveston, and was two weeks on his way home. In 1866 Mr. Snow 
attended the Patch Grove Academy in Grant county, Wisconsin, conducted 
by a graduate from Harvard, and subsequently took a course in a 
commercial college at Madison, Wisconsin. About this time his old 
captain opened a store in Dodgeville, that state, and Mr. Snow entered 
his employ as a clerk, remaining in that capacity until he came west in 
the spring of 1870. 

	Upon his first visit to Springfield Mr. Snow remained only long 
enough to file upon a claim a mile and a half from the present town 
site and then returned to Wisconsin. In May 1870, together with five 
companions, he drove through Iowa by wagon, camping by the wayside and 
reaching Springfield, this state, in seventeen days. On his first trip 
he had no horse and was compelled to pay four dollars per day for a 
pony, and this experience taught him a lesson. Accordingly the party 
brought their own horses and wagons, driving through in 1870. Some of 
the young men established a sawmill on the flats near Springfield and 
Mr. Snow purchased an interest in the enterprise. As the nearby timber 
was cut off, the mill was moved up the river from time to time until 
all the big timber upon its banks was manufactured into lumber. After 
proving up on his preemption claim Mr. Snow filed on a timber claim 
west of Tyndall, but later sold the relinquishment for one hundred 
dollars, which would not buy an acre of the place now. Later he filed 
on a homestead claim near the site of the present Springfield railroad 
station and in two years secured title to the same, his three years, 
service in the army shortening the length of residence required. 

	In 1876, with several companions, Mr. Snow went to the Black 
Hills and located a placer claim near Hill City in Palmer's Gulch, 
where they found enough gold to pay them fairly well, but, hearing of 
the fabulous strikes at Deadwood, they pulled up stakes and migrated to 
the new diggings. Their hopes were not realized, however, and they 
returned without the fortune that they set out to find. Provisions were 
very high in the Hills and the boys sold some of theirs, so much in 
fact that they subsequently did not have enough for themselves. Mr. 
Snow and one other returned to Yankton and with oxen took back two 
loads of provisions, returning by way of Fort Pierre. The Indians about 
that time became hostile and killed four men, one of these men being a 
man to whom Mr. Snow bad been talking but a few hours before he was 
killed and scalped. The Indian uprising was so disquieting that the 
party left the Hills in October and went home, having been absent since 
the preceding April. 

	After his return Mr. Snow clerked for a time and then secured the 
nomination for treasurer of Bon Homme county on the republican ticket, 
while his employer, M. H. Day, ran for the legislature as a democrat. 
They campaigned together and both were elected. After serving for two 
terms, or four years, as county treasurer, Mr. Snow, in partnership 
with an uncle, Reuben Groot, opened a bank in Springfield, and for 
twenty years the institution was one of the prosperous and solid 
financial institutions of South Dakota. The partners experienced an old 
time bank robbery, in which the safe was dynamited and five thousand 
dollars in money was stolen. The perpetrators of the crime were 
apprehended and some of them are still serving out their sentence. At 
the end of twenty years of successful banking Mr. Snow and his partner 
sold out. He then turned his attention to real estate and insurance and 
is still engaged in that business, in which he has met with signal 
success. At one time or another he has owned nearly every tract of land 
in the township in which Springfield is located, besides many farms in 
surrounding townships and counties, and he still holds title to several 
thousand acres of fine farming and grazing lands. 

	Mr. Snow has been twice married. On the 19th of April, 1874, he 
was united in marriage to Miss Sylvia L. Tyler, the well known pioneer 
preacher, Rev. Ward, performing the ceremony. Mrs. Snow passed away in 
May, 1878, leaving a son, Harry, who died in August of the same year. 
In February, 1882, Mr. Snow married Mrs. Alberta M. Davison, nee Mead, 
by whom he has two sons: George G., who is associated with his father 
in the real-estate business and who attended the law school of the 
University of Michigan at Ann Arbor two years and the law department of 
Yale University for two years, graduating from the latter institution 
with the class of 1907; and Frank M., who graduated from the 
Springfield high school, attended an institution of higher learning at 
Colorado Springs for one year and was a student for a like length of 
time in the University of Washington and the University of Nebraska. He 
has since written for various journals in the west. Mrs. Snow died 
April 28, 1912. 

	Mr. Snow has been a factor in the making of his adopted state, 
having served as a delegate to the Sioux Falls Constitutional 
Convention in 1889 and as a member of the first state legislature. He 
has been a member of both branches of the legislature and used his vote 
and influence in that body to secure appropriation for the State Normal 
School at Springfield. He was also twice called to the lieutenant 
governor's chair and during both terms was able to further advance the 
interests of the school. His political belief is that of the republican 
party. Since 1867 he has been an Odd Fellow and has served in the state 
grand lodge as grand master and treasurer. In 1881 he became a Mason 
and has now taken the thirty-second degree in that order. He affiliates 
with the blue lodge at Springfield, the consistory at Yankton and El 
Riad Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Sioux Falls, in all of which 
branches of Masonry he has filled some of the chairs. He is a comrade 
of General Steedman Post, G. A. R., at Springfield, and in 1901 and 
1902 served as department commander. There are few living today who 
have known Dakota earlier or more intimately than Mr. Snow and few have 
done more in shaping its affairs, not only in his home locality but in 
the state at large.