(Additional Contributor Is Melvin L. Fowler.)
Additional Contributor Is Melvin L. Fowler.
https://www.amazon.com/John-Francis-Snyder-Selected-Writings/dp/1258451336?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1258451336
archaeologist military physician author
John was born on March 22, 1830 at Prairie du Pont, Saint Clair County, Illinois, United States. He was the son of Adam Wilson Snyder and Adelaide (Perry) Snyder. His mother, who was of French ancestry on both sides, was a grand-daughter of Capt. John Baptiste Saucier, the architect of Fort Chartres. His father, a son of Adam Snyder, a German soldier of the Revolution who was born in Alsace and settled in Reading, had come to Cahokia in 1817, penniless and afoot.
Snyder was first educated at Belleville, Illinois, at McKendree College, Lebanon, Illinois, and at the St. Louis University. During the winter of 1849-50 he was a student at McDowell Medical College in St. Louis. He also entered Jefferson Medical College, where he graduated in 1853.
After studies he was in government medical service in western territories and went over the old Santa Fe trail to Taos and Albuquerque; then he resigned and began the practice of medicine at Bolivar, Missouri.
He was admitted to the Missouri bar in 1859, but he never practised law. In June 1861 he joined the Confederates under Sterling Price and as colonel fought through the Civil War, taking active part in the battles of Wilson Creek, Lexington, Pea Ridge, Helena, Corinth, and Baldwin. Although he was reared in familiarity with a modified form of slavery (indenture of colored servants), served in the Confederate army, and was himself a slave-holder on a small scale.
Returning to Illinois after the war, he resumed the practice of medicine at Virginia. He was elected a member of the thirty-first Illinois legislature, where he gave a good account of himself, but declined further participation in party politics. He became the president of the Illinois State Historical Society, 1903-05. He was also affiliated with the St. Louis Academy of Sciences, the Illinois Academy of Science, and other organizations. For many years he was a research correspondent of the Smithsonian Institution, which published several of his shorter papers.
He died in Virginia, at the age of ninety-one years, in full possession of all his faculties.
John Francis Snyder may well be considered the ranking pioneer in archaeology of the state of Illinois. He was the first to indicate cultural differences between prehistoric tribes of southern and central Illinois. He took part in the survey and mapping of the Cahokia mounds, and advocated their preservation. His most important writings are The Field for Archaeological Research in Illinois; Captain John Baptiste Saucier at Fort Chartres in the Illinois and others.
(Additional Contributor Is Melvin L. Fowler.)
He always abhorred slavery, defending it only on the meager ground of expediency.
John was fond of books, a close observer of nature and natural history, and early began the collection of fossils, minerals, and archaeological relics.
On September 27, 1854, he married Annie E. Sanders, daughter of Landon Sanders of Lexington.
