Ancestors

Jacob Snyder

Jacob Snyder was born on 25 March 1816, in New York. His gravestone gives the date. His birthplace is less certain. His memorial names Bulls Head, in Dutchess County, but hedges: "He came originally from Prattsville, in Greene County. Believe he was born in Bulls Head." Every census gives his birthplace simply as New York. His parents are not known.

He married Elizabeth Ray, who was sixteen years younger. Their first son, John Henry, was born in December 1848, when she was sixteen. Eight more sons followed over the next eighteen years: Charles William, LeRoy, Egbert Silvernail, Wellington, Nelson Howard, James Harvey, Abraham Lincoln and James Hoagland. They had no daughters. James Harvey died as an infant, and eight sons grew up.

In 1855 the family was in Cochecton, Sullivan County, New York, on the upper Delaware. The state census that year lists Jacob, 38, Elizabeth and their four eldest boys. It also lists a long run of young men unrelated to the family, living under the same roof, and Newton Ray, born 1830 in Connecticut, who was very likely Elizabeth's brother. The household was evidently taking in boarders, though the census does not say what work brought them.

By 1860 they were in Prattsville village, Greene County, in the Catskills: Jacob, 44, Elizabeth, six sons, and a Gideon Alberty.

Then came the war. According to family account, Jacob walked from Swan Lake to Kingston with his eldest son John Henry to sign up, and he came home disabled. His obituary is blunter: "He was in several battles and in one of them contributed a leg to the cause of freedom." His regiment is not known. The 1890 federal schedule of Union veterans lists him at Bethel, Sullivan County.

His son Abraham Lincoln was born in November 1863, while the war was still on. The 1865 New York census has the whole family at Prattsville again: Jacob, 48, Elizabeth, and seven boys down to "A Lincoln". Ten years later they were at Fremont in Sullivan County, with the youngest, James, now in the house. In 1880 Jacob, 64, was at Liberty, Sullivan County, with his occupation given as "No Occupation". Elizabeth, Abraham and James were with him.

Elizabeth died on 13 March 1897 at Stevensville, the hamlet in the town of Liberty now called Swan Lake. In 1900 Jacob, 84 and a widower, was living at Liberty with his eldest son John and with his youngest, James, and James's family.

He died at his home at Stevensville in late February 1906, a month before his ninetieth birthday. The Middletown Times-Press reported it on 12 March: "Jacob Snyder, one of the oldest veterans of the Civil War in this part of the State, died on the 26th ult. at his home at Stevensville, Sullivan county. He was in several battles and in one of them contributed a leg to the cause of freedom. Eight sons survive him." His gravestone gives the date as 27 February 1906. He is buried in the Swan Lake Cemetery beside Elizabeth, under a stone reading "FATHER / JACOB SNYDER" and a family obelisk with SNYDER on its base and the words "A ROCK OF AGES".

If Jacob Snyder is in your family, start your own tree.

Cite: Heirology, "Jacob Snyder (1816-1906)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/jacob-snyder-1816-1906-942f8d.