189 William Snodgrass and uncle of Jeremiah, was the first one of the name to come to Ritchie county. He was a native of Pennsylvania and a soldier of the war of 1812. In 1807, he was married to Miss Nancy King, who passed on in 1824, from their home in Marion county, leaving eight children to his care. Two years later, he was again married to Miss Mary Pritchard - half sister of Peter Pritchard, and in 1841 he came to this county, and penetrated the unbroken forest on Turtle run - a small tributary of the South fork - above Berea, and reared the first cabin on the farm that is now the home of his youngest son, T.C. Snodgrass; and here he died in 1879, at the age of ninety-six years, and at White Oak he sleeps.
The children of his first marriage were: John Wesley Snodgrass, who died in Iowa, a few years ago, at the age of ninety-one years- having been a minister of the Methodist Episcopal church for seventy-three years; Mrs. Frances (Nicholas) Baker, and Mrs. Martha (Elijah) Morgan, who sleep in Marion county; Mrs. Naoma (Davis) Meredith, late of Tyler county; Mrs. Nancy Pierce, Mrs. Comfort Ewins, and Mrs. Isabel (Jared) Hawkins, of Ohio; and Sarah, who married Solomon Hawkins and lived and died in this county.
The children of the second marriage were five in number and were as follows: W.F., who rests in Kansas; B.F., in the state of Washington; Eliza, who died in infancy; Mrs. Margaret A., who married George Carder and lives in Ohio; and T.C. Snodgrass, who lives at the old homestead. Mrs. Snodgrass died at the home of her daughter in Ohio, and there she sleeps.
The Snodgrasses are of Irish origin. Three brothers, William, James and Michael Snodgrass, came for Ireland and settled in Washington county, Pennsylvania. Michael wandered away, and was never heard from again, and William and James removed to Monongalia - now Marion - county, (W.) Virginia, in 1787; and three years later James met a tragic death at the hands of the Indians, on Fishing creek in Wetzel county, while in quest of his horse that he had lost while on a buffalo chase. His remains were afterwards found and buried, but not until the flesh had been torn from the bones by the fangs of wolves.
William married Miss Kathrine Yost, a German maiden, and from his sons, William, junior, Isaac and Franklin, the Ritchie county Snodgrasses are descended. Isaac was the father of the late Mrs. John Parker, of Nathan, who went West, and of Elias Snodgrass, who died in Doddridge county.