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John
Snow, 24 May 1844 AL-29 June 1921 Co. F, 2
Battl’n AL Light Artillery CSA Russian
River Cemetery, Ukiah (K-11, Lot 2, NE 1/4) JOHN SNOW PASSES TO GREAT BEYOND
– John Snow, a resident of this county since 1890, passed away in
Ukiah Wednesday evening, the cause of his death being general debility
resulting from his extreme age. The
deceased was born in Alabama, May 24, 1844.When the Civil war broke out,
he enlisted in the southern army and served the entire four years of the
war. After the war was over he went into the mercantile business but
sold out when he decided to come to California. He
was justice of the peace in Little Lake township in 1908 and 1909. He
was a member of the Masonic lodge. There
remains to mourn his death, a daughter, Mrs. George Richardson, to whom
the sympathy of many friends is extended. Dispatch Democrat 1
July 1921 John Snow, Old Resident Here, Dead
– Funeral services were held here Saturday morning at ten o’clock
for John Snow, who died at the home of his daughter, Mrs. George
Richardson in Ukiah Wednesday evening. Death was due to debility brought
on by age. Born
In South Mr.
Snow has resided in Ukiah for more than 30 years. Prior to that time he
was justice of the peace in Willits. He was born in Alabama and was 77
years old. He was a member of the G.A.R. having served in the southern
army during the entire term of the Civil war. Masons
In Charge The
funeral services Saturday were conducted by the Rev. E.H. Benson of Holy
Trinity Episcopal church. Services at the cemetery were conducted by the
Masonic Lodge of which the deceased had long been a member. The pall
bearers were J.L. McCracken, N.S. Burge, E.C. Caffery, J.J. Murphey,
J.C. Hurley and William Bromley. Mrs. Richardson is the sole surviving
member of the family and the sympathy of many friends is being extended
to her. Ukiah Republican Press 6 July 1921 JOHN SNOW. – The early American
identification of the Snow family with New England gave several
generations of the name as factors in the material upbuilding of
Massachusetts, but in the first half of the nineteenth century the name
became transplanted into Northern Alabama through the settlement of Dr.
Charles Snow upon a country estate one mile north of Tuscaloosa. This
cultured gentleman, who combined a thorough knowledge of the medical
profession with an intelligent oversight of a large plantation, married
Miss Virginia Penn, a native of Virginia and a member of an old family
of that commonwealth. Their youngest child and only son, John, was born
at the Alabama plantation May 24, 1844, and passed his early years
uneventfully at the homestead in the suburbs of Tuscaloosa, where he
gained a knowledge of cotton planting and other departments of
agriculture as followed in the sounth. The outbreak of the Civil war
when he was seventeen years of age changed the whole current of his
existence. From the school, where he had been pursuing a course of study
with the leisurely indifference of youth, he hastened to the southern
army, enlisted in Lumsden’s battery and gave to his native region an
eagerness of service and strength of devotion limited only by his
physical capacity. Nor did he retire from the army until the end of the
struggle of four years, although he had suffered greatly from the
hardships of camp and the perils of the battlefield. Broken in health,
he was left at the age of twenty-one to face a furure darkened by the
fall of the Confederacy and the agricultural ruin of the south. Chance
directed him to mercantile pursuits and throughout all of his active
business life he followed such lines of enterprise. First
as a grocer and then as proprietor of a general store, Mr. Snow
ultimately developed the J. Snow hardware Company of Tuscaloosa, dealers
in hardware, agricultural implements and machinery of all kinds. The
firm became the largest of its kind in that part of Alabama. The name of
the proprietor was a synonym for honesty and fair dealing. For years it
was his custom to spend his winters in Tuscaloosa and his summers six
miles east of that city, on the Hurricane river, where he had an estate,
Hurricane, of five hundred acres, forming a beautiful country home.
About the year 1890 he disposed of his interests in the south, and
removed to Mendocino county, Cal., where in 1907-09 he served as justice
of the peace at Willits. His removal to Ukiah, his present place of
residence, was largely influenced by his purchase of the Ukiah garage of
John Thornton, for the benefit of a son-in-law, George Richardson, an
exceptionally skilled mechanic. Under their management the garage has
become very successful, doing probably nine-tenths of the business of
the entire city in its line. For many years Mr. Snow officiated as a
vestryman and treasurer of the Episcopal Church in Tuscaloosa, Ala., and
his devotion to that creed has never wavered throughout his long life.
Fraternally he is a stanch advocate of the principles of Masonry, and
joined the order in Tuscaloosa. He is a member of Abell Lodge No. 146,
F. & A. M. He was also made a Royal Arch Mason in Tuscaloosa, but is
now a member of Ukiah Chapter No. 53, R. A. M., and has also transferred
his membership from Tuscaloosa to Ukiah Chapter No. 33, K. T. At
different times he has officiated as presiding officer of lodge, chapter
and commandery. All movements for the benefit of the order or for the
aid of its members receive his cordial co-operation. One of his most
striking characteristics is a pronounced literary taste. Few men in the
county are more conversant than he with literature ancient and modern.
In the days of his large business enterprises he yet found leisure to
keep in touch with the world’s masterpieces of thought and in later
years of larger leisure his happiest hours are those spent with a
favorite book. With his schloarly tastes there lingers nothing of the
bookworm or the recluse, for there is always apparent in his attitude
toward the world the spirit of valor that kept him in the army during
four years of suffering and defeat and there is noticeable also an
alertness in public questions, a familiarity with topics of the business
world and an intimate knowledge of soil, trees and flowers, that mark
the man of broad vision and versatile tastes. (Aurelius O. Carpenter and
Percy H. Millberry, History of Mendocino and Lake Counties,
California... [Los Angeles, Cal.: Historic Record Co., 1914],
756-757.)
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