A WORD OF CAUTION
In 1945, William F. HORN published a three-volume set of
genealogy and local history entitled, "THE HORN PAPERS" (hereinafter abbreviated "THP").
After the publication of HORN's work, many serious researchers
challenged his historical accuracy. A national study of errors was made, a report of findings
issued and copies placed with local libraries around the country (e.g. The Mid-Continent Library, Independence, Missouri).
Though HORN's third volume, containing warrant maps prepared from Virginia land records,
is said to be generally trustworthy, his first two volumes have been universally discredited.
An article debunking HORN was printed in "THE WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY" [volume
and number of issue unknown] - and is available at many genealogical research centers
[e.g. The Denver, Colorado Public Library].
"THP" must be mentioned here because they contain companion biographies of
George and John SNIDER - biographies dismissed as mere "fiction"
by reliable professional genealogists - and biographies often unwittingly cited by
less-experienced though well-meaning researchers.
The authors of the present monograph acknowledge HORN's land warrant maps
as potentially useful research aids, but wish to emphasize that his far-ranging [and unadmitted]
"embellishment" of the truth has led many amateur investigators astray.
For this reason, this excerpt of "THP" is presented here. Readers may wish to consult
this transcript to identify HORN's misinformation - and delete it from their databases.
"THE HORN PAPERS - EARLY WESTWARD MOVEMENT
ON THE MONONGAHELA AND UPPER OHIO 1765-1794"
(Volume Two)
by William F. HORN
The Herald Press, Scottdale, Pennsylvania, 1945.
"THP" Vol. Two - Page 517
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
JOHN SNIDER
"John SNIDER, son of Michael and Susanna [BAISFIELD] SNIDER, was born in Philadelphia, February 24th, 1737.
He was educated in the common branches of the English language, according to his day. He, early in life,
became much interested in sheep, and was known as the 'Shepherd boy.' He learned the tanning trade, but soon
began to exhibit a strong desire to explore the frontier regions of the colony. This led to his parents taking
a homestead in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, one year before the county was organized. When John SNIDER
had reached the age of twenty years, in 1757, he he met the most famous of the western frontier border settlers,
Christopher GIST, who spent one day and a night at the home of Michael SNIDER, when on his way from
Philadelphia to his home at Mt. Braddock. Through this acquaintance, John secured a position as a "sheep man"
on the CULLPEPPER plantation in Virginia. But it was only a short time until Christopher GIST employed John
SNIDER and his young friend and assistant, Zachariah MARTIN, to become two of his five postriders and searchers
of the frontier regions for gold and lead, which GIST had now resigned all other interests to prosecute this long
desire to find these metals, as stated by the Indians. During the years of 1758 and 1759, these postriders made
many trips through the wild timbered regions from the headwaters of the Potomac River to the Ohio. In 1760,
John SNIDER and Zachariah MARTIN joined with Bernard ECKERLIN and made a trip to the old Cayuga Indian
settlement on the Little Beaver, but found neither gold nor lead. Late in 1759, John SNIDER and the Huron
Indian Village Chief 'Tall Tree' of the Elk Clan became envolved [sic] in some trouble over the promised sale of furs
to Bernard ECKERLIN, and SNIDER was made a prisoner for a short time, but GIST soon learned of this, and he
with four other men raided this small camp and released his postrider. In 1761, SNIDER and MARTIN accompanied
GIST in his northwestern journey into the Lake Superior regions on the hunt for gold and lead. They found neither but
did find copper ore and flaked iron ore. In 1763, John SNIDER and Zachariah MARTIN erected their"
"THP" Vol. Two - Page 518
"home on the site of Chief Tall Tree's Village on Crooked Run near now Rosedale, Greene County, Pennsylvania, at
the request of Christopher GIST. This home and fort was the well-known Fort MARTIN, that so many people took
safe shelter in during the raids in 1774. John SNIDER married Mary GILCHEST, who was the first cousin of Isabel
RANDOLPH, the wife of Zachariah MARTIN. John and Mary SNIDER were the parents of ten children, namely --
Jeremiah, Rudolph, John, George, Asariah, William, Susanna, Catherine, Cassendes, and Mary. The entire family
were strong supporters of the American Army in the Revolution and Susanna SNIDER was known far and wide as a
charity worker during the dark days of 1777-1778. John SNIDER born at Philadelphia, February 24th, 1737, was the
son of Michael and Susanna [BAISFIELD] SNIDER, a grandson of Rudolph and Elizabeth [MORELAND] SNIDER,
and a great-grandson of Rudolph and Corocia [COBLENCE] SNIDER of the German-French Province of Lorraine.
Rudolph SNIDER was born in the month of June, 1677.--'International Records,' London, England. Zachariah
MARTIN and John SNIDER, who were two of the five postriders for Christopher GIST from 1758 to 1763, and
with him on his research for gold in Northwest Indian Country in 1761-1762, were the pioneer settlers on Crooked
Run near the present village of Rosedale, Greene County, Pennsylvania, at the very time that GIST settled his
sixty-three Virginia families on his former French lands on the east side of the Monongahela River. It was
Christopher GIST who advised Zachariah MARTIN and John SNIDER to make the Huron Indian Village Chief's
Camp site the place to erect their home and fort on Crooked Run and thus aid the new settlers from a western attack,
as well as to afford to some degree, protection to George BROWN, and his ferry, below the mouth of Dunkard Creek
from 1763-1774. It was the famous fur trader who first spied out this site of Fort MARTIN, when with Dr. Samuel
ECKERLIN, they visited this Huron Indian Camp in 1738 and purchased twenty Indian Carrier loads of prime furs
that were transported to Baltimore during the summer of that year. The history of the MARTINs and the SNIDERs
like that of their Chiefton [sic], Christopher GIST, has been so mixed, and so little understood, and so misrepresented
by writers, that only a limited number of the present day readers have the real and true history of those pioneers
who entered the forest regions bordering on the Monon-"
"THP" Vol. Two - Page 519
"gahela River, and there, erected their homes, and subdued the Indians and became the forefathers of our western
civilization.
Gov. John A. MARTIN,
Topeka, Kansas.
September 15th, 1888
George SNIDER, the third son of Michael and Susanna [BAISFIELD] SNIDER, and a grandson of Rudolph
and Elizabeth [MORELAND] SNIDER, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was born in the Quaker City,
October 24, 1744. George SNIDER, like his elder brother John, soon developed a strong desire to leave the city
and become a farmer and livestock raiser. He emigrated with his parents to Washington County, Maryland, in
1749, where they took up farm life. Here he grew up and became interested in the Indian tract and the frontier
western border life. In 1762, George SNIDER made a trip with his brother John, and Zachariah MARTIN, who were
two of the five post riders for Christopher GIST, to the old GIST Camp site, later Point Marion, at the junction of the
Monongahela and Cheat rivers, where he remained a short time. After a brief visit to Mt. Braddock, he returned to
the Potomac River, and worked in the CRESAP stillhouse at the great fountain spring at the head of "Swamprun"
operated by Cornelious FRIENDTZ-(FRIEND). In 1763, he went to Philadelphia, with Colonel Thomas CRESAP, Senator,
but returned the same year to his father's home near Long Meadows, then the "DUNLANEY's Delight." In 1769,
George SNIDER married Catherine [LEMLEY] WELLS, a sister to the wife of Robert DOWDELL. In the spring of
1770, they emigrated west to a tract of land tomahawked in June 1769 on the waters of Little French Creek
(changed to Dunkard Creek, named in honor of Joseph DUNKARD). This land occupied a part of upper 'Echo Ridge'
(Indian Ridge) where Dr. Samuel ECKERLIN made his escape from the Huron Indians in 1731. This was called the
DOWDELLS Settlement up to 1783, in honor of the famous DOWDELL family who came to DOWDELL's Point, and
DOWDELL's Run, which later came to be called 'Doll's Run.' Jacob DOWDELL settled on this land in 1763, but so far
as the records show, he did not patent it. George and Catherine SNIDER had nine children: Rudolph, William, John,
Jeremiah, Michael, Catherine, Elizabeth, Cassender, and Sarah, who was born April 19, 1787, and died at the age of
twenty years."
"THP" Vol. Two - Page 520
Rudolph SNIDER (born in 1770) and William SNIDER, brothers, sons of George SNIDER, emigrated to Marietta, Ohio,
in 1796, and their sister, Elizabeth SNIDER-BARR, settled near Circleville, Ohio in 1806. George SNIDER, with
Jacob STATLER, Joseph REECE, James BROWN, and Jacob STILWELL, encountered a band of Huron Indians
near the home of Jacob DOWDELL, above DOWDELL's Run (Doll's Run), early in June 1770, and killed six of the
Indians. In October of the same year, a second Huron Indian Raid was made on STATLER's Run, but the Indians
were run out of the country by the rangers from the Monongahela River Posts of Fort Swan and Van Metre, Fort
Teegarden, and Fort MARTIN, joined by George MORRIS' guards at Fort MORRIS. In 1772, George SNIDER raised the
first wheat ever grown in Monongalia County, and in 1774, he let Zackwell MORGAN have "ten quarters" of wheat and
four oxen, for public use (for guards on the Ohio River). George SNIDER rendered Samuel JACKSON assistance in
1774, by rations for ten settlers for thirty-nine days in enforced retirement. In 1775, he was made a coast guard on the
Monongahela River at GIST Point, and served for November and December, 1775. Catherine LEMLEY WELLS SNIDER,
with her husband, two daughters, and two sons, Rudolph and Michael, Jr., were buried in 'Lookout' graveyard, or
SNIDER burial ground, at the foot of Indian Ridge, overlooking Dunkard Creek and the Mason and Dixon Line. The
daughter Sarah (1787) was one of the first primary school instructors in the DOWDELL Settlement in 1800. The headstone
of her grave marker was photographed in 1940, by Hon. Frank B. JONES of Waynesburg, Pennsylvania.
Jeremiah SNIDER
Jeremiah SNIDER, son of George and Catherine SNIDER, and grandson of Michael of Washington County, Maryland,
was born at "Point Lookout" on Dunkard Creek, in Monongahela [sic] County, West Virginia, May 26, 1786. He married
Ann RICH, daughter of Jacob and Ann [PENTER] RICH of Monongalia County, West Virginia, in November 1805.
They had thirteen children, of which Catherine was the eldest, born March 5th, 1807, and William, born March 4th, 1831.
Jeremiah SNIDER died in Washington County, Iowa April 24th, 1874. Ann RICH SNIDER died in Washington County, Iowa
June 27th, 1860."