The artifact of the month is a buckskin suit (jacket and pants) made and worn by George Lee Snider (1870-1934), a lifelong rancher in Dry Creek Valley near Healdsburg. George was a skilled hunter and butcher and would have had experience in both curing meats and tanning hides. Every fall, with the help of his wife and neighbors, he would butcher hogs, and other animals, raised for his family’s consumption. He had a smoke house where he would cure hams and bacon and smoke links of sausage.

George Snider’s mother Jane Allman Miles Snider was born in County Cork, Ireland but came to America (Boston, Massachusetts) at the age of twelve with her family. As a young woman she traveled from the East Coast and across the Isthmus of Panama to get to California where her brother had arrived earlier. When Jane Allman was staying in Healdsburg with her brother, he introduced her to the man who would become her first husband, John Miles. She married Mr. Miles in 1857 and together they had four children. They lived on a ranch in the Dry Creek Valley.

After the death of Mr. Miles in 1866, she married John Durham Snider in 1868. Snider had settled on his mountain ranch at the head of Pena Creek above the Dry Creek Valley. He hauled lumber from Mill Creek to build his house there. He planted pear trees, apricots, apples and grapevines, in addition to grape vines. Born in Kentucky, John Snider had come to California around 1850, driving cattle from Texas to California on horseback. He then bought land on both sides of Dry Creek Valley. By the time he married Jane Allman Miles he owned quite a large acreage in Dry Creek. (He was said to have bought up the lands of John Miles, upon his death, plus that of others.) In addition to her four children with her first husband, Jane had three more children with John Snider, the second of whom was George Lee Snider. The family lived at 4694 Dry Creek Road. In 1878, John D. Snider separated from Jane and began to spend a great deal of time at his mountain ranch at the head of Pena Creek, in addition to a house in Healdsburg. When John Snider died in 1900 his son George Snider inherited the ranch.

Dry Creek Store, 1909. Left to right: Mr. and Mrs. Boyce, proprietors; Ira Jones, John Thauren, George Snider, Sr., Laurence Boyce, John McCarty and Jess Gibson. On seat, back, Jack Snider; front, George Snider, Jr.

George Snider grew up on his family’s Dry Creek ranch. He married Annie Frances Campbell, the daughter of Thomas and Margaret Campbell, in 1896. Annie had lived in a log cabin in the Mill Creek area as a child.  George and Annie Snider lived on a 100 acre ranch in Dry Creek from the time of their marriage. They raised grapes and prunes, and owned 1,000 acres of mountain land on which they raised sheep and cattle. The couple raised seven children.  

In 1989, Walter Snider (one of George’s sons) fondly recalled the time he spent with his father in his youth. He remembered the ranch chores his father had him do -- picking prunes, picking grapes, sulfuring the vines, and pruning. He also remembered his father taking the whole family on a wagon with a team of mules or horses from Dry Creek all the way to the coast each year for several weeks of summer vacation.

Sources: 

“Dry Creek Pioneer is Dead at Home.” The Healdsburg Enterprise; March 29, 1934. 

Finley, Ernest Latimer, ed. “Annie F. Snider.” History of Sonoma County, CA. The Press Democrat Publishing Company, Santa Rosa, CA, 1937 pp. 103. 

Gossage, Maude Snider. “The Campbells.” Vintage Memories. Published by the Dry Creek Neighbors Club, 1979; pp 12-15. 

Snider, Walter. “Memories.” Family stories.

The above was researched and written by Whitney Hopkins 

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