Volume 4, Number 3 - Spring 1971
The Snapp Family
By Ruth Gillis Ryser
Only in the port of Philadelphia did the authorities insist on the preparation of careful and detailed lists of arrivals and we can be thankful that it was here that our first ancestors arrived.
Into this port sailed the Ship Samuel, August 17, 1733 with ninety Palatines and their families, making in all two hundred and ninety one persons imported from Rotter-dam.
Johannes Snapp aged 37 arrived bringing his wife Barbara aged 34, and their three children, Johannes Snapp 12, Lawrence 10, and Barbara 3. Lawrence Snapp aged 21, presumed to be a brother came with this family.
Johannes and Barbara Snapp lived in Penn. until 1750 when they moved their family into the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.
Lawrence Snapp, the second son of Johannes and Barbara was our ancestor. He was a trustee of Woodstock, a vestryman of Gen. Muhlenberg’s Lutheran Church at Wood-stock. He was a Patriot, giving material aid to George Washington’s Army. At least three of his sons were commissioned officers of the Revolutionary War. At the time of his death Lawrence Snapp owned almost two thousand acres of land in the Shenandoah Valley.
John Snapp, Senr. born 1750, the first son of Lawrence Snapp seemed to have received the largest share of his father’s estate, much of this land lying in the boundries of Rockingham County. John Snapp, Senr. was a trustee of Keezletown and it is believed he was the first fine horse breeder in the county, having an inventory of 13 horses in the first census when most Rockingham farmers owned two to four. One of John’s daughters, Susannah married George Houston of Rockingham, a relative of Sam Houston.
John Snapp Jr. married Elizabeth Cook in Rockingham Co. Oct. 20, 1807. Elizabeth Cook was born March 11, 1792. She was 15 and John Jr. was 19 at the time of their marriage. Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry Cook and wife Mary Magdalena. Henry Cook was German and signed legal documents in German as did Lawrence Snapp. Henry Cook served at the Battle of Point Pleasant with Capt. William Nalle.
In 1815 there was an exodus of families from Rockingham Co. Our John Snapp Senr. and John Snapp Jr. sold their land and moved to Washington Co., Tenn. Abraham Snapp, the brother of our John Snapp Senior, had moved to this area fifteen years before with his thirteen children.
Our John Snapp Senr. had not long to enjoy his new home in Tenn. for in 1819 he died. John Snapp Senr. was an Ensign in the Revolutionary War. He is buried in Washington or Greene Co., Tenn. in an undiscovered grave.
Harrison Galifant Snapp, Taney County Settler, was the son of John Snapp Jr. born 1812 in Rockingham Co., Va. He was the only child to receive funds in his father’s will for a "regular education at Washington College."
In 1839, Harrison Snapp and three of his brothers, Madison C., Peachy K., Alexander A., migrated to Missouri. Harrison settled in Taney Co. Madison C. and Peachy K. settled in Polk Co. Alexander lived in several northern Missouri counties. John Henry Snapp, another brother settled in Illinois.
Before the Civil War, Harrison Snapp owned land stretching from Forsyth to Kirbyville. He kept an old negro couple in a cabin close to Kribyville to tend the cattle, when that area was just a wilderness. After the death of his first wife, Emily Parry Snapp, an old negro woman raised the Snapp children and gave liberal punishment when it was needed. Harrison Snapp married Sarah Jane Callen Leathers, the widow of James Leathers of Green Forest, Ark. Mrs. Leathers had two children—Joan and James. Two children were born to Harrison and Sarah Leathers Snapp. They were Madison and Americus.
Harrison’s sons David J., Lafayette D., and Andrew J. joined Prices Army and served in the cause of the South, Andrew (called Bunk) being only 17 yrs. old. The Union Army confiscated, burned all buildings, fences, drove the livestock into the blue grass field and shot them all before the family’s eyes. A barrell of molasses was left standing and luckily too, for it held the family money hastily deposited there as the soldiers approached. The family fled to Cooper County where relatives may have lived and where Harrison Snapp died, presumably, in 1863.
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THE HARRISON SNAPP FAMILY
Rose, born 1837, Green Co., Tenn. married (1) Mr. Carr (2) Tom Casey
Victoria Emily, born 1839, Greene, Co., Tenn. married Richard Thompson
David J. Snapp, born 1840, Forsyth, Mo., married Virginia ?
Lafayette Dedrick, born Apr. 22, 1942, Forsyth, married Mary Hester Luckenbill
Andrew J., born 1844, Forsyth Addie Belie Vedora, born March 11, 1848, Forsyth, married Dr. Elisha Turner Anderson
Robert Grant, Born Apr. 5, 1850, Forsyth, married Lydia Ann Rider
Samuel H., born Nov. 15, 1854, Forsyth, married (1) Sarah A. Sims (2) Susan Haggard Children by Sarah, 2nd wife
James Madison, born Oct. 14, 1857, married Nancy Elizabeth Dennison
Americus, born after 1860
James Leathers, born Mar. 11, 1848 Green Forest, Ark, married Parilee Wood
Joan Leathers, born 1854 Green Forest, Ark.
Emily D. Parry Snapp, 1st wife, died Sept. 24, 1855 and is buried in the Snapp Cemetery south of Forsyth.
Sarah Jane Callen Leathers Snapp married Z. P. Moore after the death of Harrison Snapp.
She died July, 1904 and was buried beside her first husband, James Leathers, at Green Forest, Ark.
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