INTRODUCTION TO THE SNODGRASS SOURCE BOOKS The state source books were created by Charlou Dolan. She began this massive project ca. 1986, organizing and typing the accumulation of Snodgrass research when she got "boxes and boxes" of files from Scott F. Hosier (he was Editor of The MACE 1978-1986). Those files formed the nucleus of the "source books". During her tenure as Editor of The MACE, 1987-1993 and since, Charlou has been hard at it: gathering and entering into the source books Snodgrass data, making trips to courthouses and libraries across the country, collecting files & family data from past & present members of The Snodgrass Clan Society, as well as soliciting information from many other Snodgrass researchers. The source books are one of the best tools available to anyone researching Snodgrass. One for nearly every state, each is organized by county and within each county, info is arranged by date. These source books contain a wealth of Snodgrass research. Census readings - wills - deeds - misc. court records - marriages - deaths - obits - histories - Bible records - even queries found in genealogical publications ... all Snodgrass! Charlou's comments on the collected data are shown as < . > throughout. Any comments marked [ . ] or [vss -] were added by me, Violet "Suzie" Snodgrass Schoolcraft beginning in 1997, the result of my reading the source books and tracing families since I first joined The Snodgrass Clan Society in 1993. PLEASE keep in mind that the source books are meant to be a reference work - they give us an idea of what has already been found. Perhaps more importantly, they show us where to look next for what is yet to be done! REMEMBER, extractions & transcriptions, notes & comments may have errors or may be missing certain portions of the original material. ALWAYS refer to the original source material whenever possible, using the source books as a starting point to guide you in your individual research. If it is SNODGRASS we at The Snodgrass Clan Society continue to collect it! Please send items (with sources cited!) you want to share with others to: Paul D. Snodgrass, at The Snodgrass Clan Society (Editor of The MACE since 1993) E-mail: paulsnodgrass@cox.net Charlou Dolan E-mail: charlou@compuserve.com (To be added to Charlou's mailing list for her updates, email her) and to me, Suzie Snodgrass Schoolcraft E-mail: snodgras@scci.net vss - October 1999 DELAWARE SOURCE BOOK -- SNODGRASS FAMILY STATEWIDE CENSUS RECORDS 1790 census index - NS 1800 census index - NS 1810 census index - NS 1820 census index - NS 1830 census index - NS 1840 census index - NS 1850 census index - NS 1860 census index - NS 1870 census - yes (see New Castle Co.) VITAL RECORDS Delaware Marriage Records (Delaware Archives, Dover) yes (see below & New Castle Co.) **************************************** RECORDS (no dates) -- David A. Snodgrass married Mary G. Delaplain (no location given). ########################################## NEW CASTLE COUNTY CENSUS RECORDS 1870 census - yes ********************************************* RECORDS 12 Jan 1811 -- Mary Snodgrass married Rev. Samuel Bellgrove. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1870 Census Christiana Hundred, page 497, #98/99: James Delaplane 73-M-DE retired, $10,000/6,000 Mary Delaplane 70-F-DE keeping house Elizabeth Delaplane 35-F-DE at home Barbary Ward 25-F-IRE domestic servant Mary D. Snodgrass 8-F-VA at home Christiana Hundred, page 501, #163/166: David Snodgrass 40-M-VA farmer, $0/800 Mary J. Snodgrass 42-F-DE keeping house David Snodgrass 13-M-VA Rebecca Snodgrass 11-M(sic)-VA Delaplain Snodgrass 8-M-VA Mary Snodgrass 6-F-VA Sarah Snodgrass 4-F-VA William Snodgrass 2-M-VA Margaret Beck 40-F-PA domestic servant [1850 & 1860 Ohio Co VA/WV, s/o John & Rebecca] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 25 Apr 1882 -- Mary D. Snodgrass married J. Stephenson Pugh. ---------------------------------- Feb 1988 -- DELAWARE TODAY, page 148: NEWARK'S BEARDED BARD: This frustrated musician became an eminent poet. By Bruce Johnson. Were Newark's W. D. Snodgrass to etch his name and title on his office door, there wouldn't be room for a doorknob. His official University of Delaware title is Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing and Contemporary Poetry, a more- than-a-mouthful handle that fits the package. This 61-year-old poet, born in Wilkinsburg, Pa., lives in Newark's George Read Village near Newark High School. A tenured professor of creative writing with the university's English department, Snodgrass, who is married and has two children, still finds plenty of time to write, often in the company of his 150-pound English mastiff, Buford. For four decades he has been writing poetry and critical essays that have won the acclaim of critics. His output of poetry includes collections like After Experience, The Fuehrer Bunker, and his most recently published work, Selected Poems, released last year. His talent has been recognized through numerous awards, the most prestigious of which was the Pulitzer in 1960, awarded for his book of poems entitled Heart's Needle. Snodgrass also has garnered the Hudson Review Fellowship in Poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Ford Foundation grant for study in theater. Before arriving at UD in 1979, this man of letters had wound his way around the world, with teaching stops at Syracuse and Cornell universities. There were occasional detours, usually when he was rebounding from career-choice cul-de-sacs. "I was a musician before I was a writer," says Snodgrass, flashing a c haracteristic grin through a billowing gray beard. "I started out on piano and violin, but I was real bad at those. I did become a good timpanist, and if there had been any openings with symphony orchestras ... that's what I would have done." There weren't, fortunately, and Snodgrass turned elsewhere for his artistic expression. But before Snodgrass gave up on music as a profession, he tried his hand at conducting. He was learning to conduct when he was drafted into the Navy during World War II. After the war, Snodgrass enrolled at the University of Iowa to become a playwright--at which he claims he did a lousy job. "It was just something to do," he says. "If I wasn't going to be involved in music, I wanted to be in the arts somewhere." The high point of his time at Iowa was his discovery of creative writing. "They had some wonderful teachers in the creative writing workshops. I sort of drifted into it. After a couple of years I felt that this was something that I could do." The Pulitzer Prize proved that Snodgrass "can do," and he does it with an eclectic slant. This musically minded poet has never forsaken his first choice of careers. He is dabbling with his first love when he translates folk music and 12th and 13th century ballads from numerous languages to English. He knows only English, so he relies on the help of friends and prose ponies for his translations. A prose pony, says Snodgrass, is a book which gives both the original and translated versions of a work. Snodgrass still takes music seriously, but not painfully so. "A friend of mine says that 'music is such a great vice, why turn it into a virtue?'" he says. Smiling, he strums one of his six individually-crafted guitars and adds, "That way it stays fun and doesn't become work. That's what it is to me." The fountain that currently nourishes Snodgrass's poetic bent has a strange wellspring. An artist friend of his, De Loss McGrath, has created a surrealistic likeness of W. D. Snodgrass--one that appears in many of McGrath's works. McGrath paintings that include "W.D." images are owned by collectors the world over, including the queen of Denmark. "McGrath started doing paintings based on works of mine," says Snodgrass. "Then he started doing these narrative paintings that have this figure W.D. in them. Then I started doing poems based on his paintings. They are really kooky, wild, delicious paintings. I've found myself being more productive than I've ever been. Though others are, Snodgrass is not convinced that he's good at what he does. "You never know. The only way to know is if your stuff is still around 300 years later. By then I'm not going to be around. Still, I won't be around to find out if I was bad, either." ############################################