HARRIS SNEDAKER
Bio-Pen Pictures
SURNAMES: PURDUM, RICE
Harris Snedaker, a citizen of the Hamilton District, lives on Fruit Vale Avenue, near the Meridian road. He has been a resident of Santa Clara County since November, 1875, having lived in San Jose from that time until the spring of 1884, when he removed his family to their present home. The home property, owned by his son, Edwin H. Snedaker, contains nine and one-tenth acres, which yields a general variety of fruit, of which prunes form the largest part. In 1887 twelve and one-half tons of apricots were sold from 119 trees, six years old, or, in other words, that was the crop of one and one-tenth acres, and from this large yield was realized the sum of $375. Mary Alice Snedaker, his daughter, owns a tract of twelve acres on Naglee Avenue, in the same district, for which she paid from money earned in school-teaching. This thrifty orchard is six years old, and produces apricots, prunes, and Bartlett pears. Both places have been converted from stubble-fields into profitable orchards by the family, who may well feel that their efforts have met with deserved success.
Mr. Snedaker is a native of Brown County, Ohio, where he was born October 13, 1825. On the twenty-eighth of October, 1849, he married, in that county, Miss Tamar Purdum, who is also a native of Brown County. Determined to seek their fortunes in the great unknown West, they started on the day following their marriage with a team and wagon (and but little capital) for Illinois, the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton being the only railroad anywhere in the West at the time. They lived for a short time in Putnam County, of that State, and in the following year bought eighty acres in Eden Township, La Salle County, Illinois.
In this new, undeveloped country they created, by industry and hard labor, a comfortable home, in which they lived for fifteen years. Their children having reached an age which made it advisable that they should receive better educational advantages than the country afforded, Mr. Snedaker removed with his family to the village of Tonica, which is situated in the same county. There they lived until, in 1874, they came to California, and after one year’s residence in Santa Barbara they lived in San Jose until, as stated at the beginning of this sketch, they made Santa Clara County their home.
Mr. and Mrs. Snedaker have three children: Mary Alice makes her home with her parents; Edwin H. is now a resident of Paso Robles, San Luis Obispo County. He held the responsible position of ticket agent and operator, in the employ of the Southern Pacific Railroad at San Jose, for seven years. Leaving the railroad employ, he was engaged for two years in the livery business in San Jose. In 1884 he again entered the employ of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, and is now its agent at Paso Robles. He wedded Miss Lizzie L. Marshall. The remaining daughter, Eunice I., is the wife of Judson Rice, of San Jose, an architect of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company.
Mr. Snedaker is
connected with the Republican party, and of Whig antecedents.
Pen Pictures From The Garden of the World or Santa Clara County, California, Illustrated. - Edited by H. S. Foote.- Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1888.
Pg. 407
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
Proofread by Betty Vickroy
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